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.
This Court will always know to temper mercy with justice where there is room for it.
Justice requires that a party should be duly summoned and fully heard before he is condemned.
I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice.
All the hideously calculated hypocrisy of men when they commit a murder in the name of justice.
God's justice and His power are inseparable; 'tis in vain we invoke His power in an unjust cause.
This is our goal—a world of peace, freedom, and social justice for all people everywhere.