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.
It is not on the ruins of liberty that we may in the future build justice.
To close the gap between jurisprudence and justice would require a canon of a hundred million laws.
‘Reform of corruption. Civil order to prevent the abuses of power. Justice.’
But it’s not justice that they’re mostly concerned with, it’s division of the loot.
“Those whom God has chosen to administer justice for others are you, judges at different levels.”
The king is free to call his greed taxation, and his misdeeds justice.
We must always strive to uphold principles of justice, fairness, and transparency.