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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 love justice, not for its consequences for bodily gain, but for itself, for the moral truth and loveliness thereof.

Theodore Parker Ten Sermons of Religion (1853)

I am a great one for winning justice for the lowly, and I do not scare easily.

R. A. Lafferty Space Chantey (1968)

Every human institution (Justice included) will stretch a little, if you only pull it the right way.

Wilkie Collins The Moonstone (1868)

Draw Dyrnwyn, only thou of noble worth, to rule with justice, to strike down evil. Who wields it in good cause shall slay even the Lord of Death.

Lloyd Alexander The Chronicles of Prydain (1964)

To think profoundly, to seek and speak truth, to love justice and denounce wrong is to draw upon one’s self the ill will of many.

John Lancaster Spalding Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)

The severest justice may not always be the best policy.

Abraham Lincoln

Trust that justice will be done in our courts without prejudice or partisanship is what, in a large part, distinguishes this country from others.

Merrick Garland Remarks by Judge Garland upon nomination to Supreme Court of the United States (2016)

The Court must not depart from those rules which have been considered necessary for the due administration of justice.

Henry Bickersteth, 1st Baron Langdale Symonds v. The Gas Light and Coke Co (1848)

Justice alone knows liberty, equality, and fraternity, and justice is a human virtue arising from man's human capacity to reason.

Milton Mayer I Think I'll Sit This One Out (1939)

The enlargement of Prussian power is little by little becoming a demand of justice.

Heinrich von Treitschke Statement (1869)

Art can often approximate life, but it has a hard time doing it justice.

Jack H. Jacobs If Not Now, When? (2008)

In a free society the state does not administer the affairs of men. It administers justice among men who conduct their own affairs.

Walter Lippmann The Good Society (1937)

Thank you, George Floyd, for sacrificing your life for justice .. your name will always be synonymous with justice.

Nancy Pelosi

I do not ask the clemency of the court. I came into it to get justice, having failed in this, I demand the full rigors of the law.

Susan B. Anthony Trial on the charge of illegal voting (1874)

I felt more keenly than before the need of a philosophy that would do justice to the infinite vitality of nature.

Will Durant Transition (1927)

A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in acquisition is entitled to that holding.

Robert Nozick Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)

Unmaking this agenda of war and demanding the implementation of justice, human rights and international law is the work of the peace movement.

Mairead Maguire

He needs no law who never falls from justice.

Antiphanes

The law merchant is a system of equity, founded on the rules of equity, and governed in all its parts by plain justice and good faith.

Sir Francis Buller, 1st Baronet Master v. Miller (1791)

Justice can be peaceably and effectually administered there only where there is recognised authority and adequate power.

Henry Bickersteth, 1st Baron Langdale Duke of Brunswick v. Bang of Hanover (1844)

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