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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.

Random quote on Justice

Most quoted on justice:

I believe that truth and justice are fundamental to an enduring social order.

John D. Rockefeller Jr.

The promptitude of resolutions most frequently accords with their justice.

Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot Posthumous Manuscripts (1878)

Justice and human rights cannot be selective.

Vittorio Arrigoni

Who cares if it's legal? I don't care if it's legal. Slavery was legal once too, and not just in America, but just about every other country in the world. The powerful have always legalized their subjugation of the less powerful.

John Kass

I've had enough of someone else's propaganda. I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against. I'm a human being first and foremost, and as such I am for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.

Malcolm X The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965)

There are only two cases in which war is just: first, in order to resist the aggression of an enemy, and second, in order to help an ally who has been attacked.

Montesquieu Lettres Persanes (1721)

'Tis only from the selfishness and confin'd generosity of men, along with the scanty provision nature has made for his wants, that justice derives its origin.

David Hume A Treatise of Human Nature (1739)

To free peoples, peace means the absence of threats and the presence of justice.

Rush Limbaugh

Every fundamental law has exceptions. But you still need the law or else all you have is observations that don’t make sense. And that’s not science. That’s just taking notes.

Geoffrey West

Bull Morgan was just the right man for the job, a man who found the law useful in how far it could occasionally be bent to save a friend.

Robert Asprin Wagers of Sin (1996)

In judging policies we should consider the results that have been achieved through them rather than the means by which they have been executed.

Niccolò Machiavelli

He the robe of justice wore,
Sully'd not, as heretofore,
When the magistrate was sought
With yearly gifts. Of what avail
Are guilty hoards? for life is frail;
And we are judg'd where favour is not bought.

Ambrose Philips

This right of free choice is no special privilege claimed by the Germans alone. It is an elemental requirement of human justice.

John F. Kennedy

I fully realize that no wealth or position can long endure, unless built upon truth and justice, therefore, I will engage in no transaction which does not benefit all whom it affects. p. 55

Napoleon Hill Think and Grow Rich (1938)

It is clear that in mulling over harsh judgments, sinister predictions, and bad memories, we fashion our own sadness; in a certain sense, we savor it.

Émile Chartier Propos sur le bonheur [On Happiness (1928)

The Fed has a dual mandate and it is maximum employment and price stability. I think that’s the way it’s phrased in the law

Janet Yellen

Marriage has played a critical role in the operation of the criminal justice system, including serving as a defense to crime and as a form of punishment

Melissa Murray

The righteous will claim sole domain on judgment. The righteous are the first to make hands into fists, the first to shout down dissenters, the first to bully others into compliance.

Steven Erikson Toll the Hounds (2008)

The laws of war, do they say? As if war were not the destruction of all laws.

Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot Posthumous Manuscripts (1878)

Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited. ... What a Eutopia — What a Paradise would this region be!

John Adams

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