Justice Quotes
By a wide margin the most quotes here are Shakespeare’s, and the two judges who follow him, Lord Mansfield and Lord Kenyon, are a sign that this page leans on the bench as much as the stage. Seneca and John Rawls fill out the top five.
Among the sourced entries, Bierce’s definition from 1911 describes justice as a commodity the State sells to citizens as a reward for their allegiance, taxes and personal service. Sartre’s Dirty Hands (1948) and Wilde’s Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898) are here for what they say about guilt, not courts.
Three lines carry flags: Marlowe’s “the justice of my quarrel,” Augustine on charity and withheld justice, and a Martin Luther King Jr. line about peace and justice being goals for man.
Crime is not punished as an offense against God, but as prejudicial to society.
Thieves for their robbery have authority
When judges steal themselves.
I charge you by the law,
Whereof you are a well deserving pillar,
Proceed to judgment.
Justice turns the scale, bringing to some learning through suffering.
Justice extorts no reward, no kind of price: she is sought, therefore, for her own sake.
Justice is indiscriminately due to all, without regard to numbers, wealth, or rank.
This shows you are above
Your justicers; that these our nether crimes
So speedily can venge!
Your pettifoggers damn their souls,
To share with knaves in cheating fools.
For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
When law can do no right,
Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong.
The bloody book of law
You shall yourself read in the bitter letter
After your own sense.
Do as adversaries do in law,
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
Back to thy punishment,
False fugitive and to thy speed add wings.