Of virtue justice is the sum and substance,
And every man is virtuous who is just.
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.
The elements of justice are identical with those of algebra.
Between justice and genocide there is, in the long run, no middle ground.
Permanent justice is well worth a temporary offended protest, I can assure you, Lieutenant.
The dead cannot cry out for justice; it is a duty of the living to do so for them.
Together we shall build a world of peace, freedom, security, social justice, and brotherhood.
It is the great challenge of our time: How to achieve justice, with struggle, but without war.
Sympathy is a first condition of criticism; reason and justice presuppose, at their origin, emotion.
Justice has a way of not arriving where and when you wish it.