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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:

Kalthum Foundation for Peace will always be concerned about issues of peace-building and conflict management vis-a-vis equity and justice for everyone.

Ummu Kalthum Muhammad

We talk all the time to women and marginalized people, and try to support them and help them access justice.

Azza Soliman

We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, self-preservation in the other.

Thomas Jefferson

You shall not stipulate for iniquity. All writers upon our law agree in this, no polluted hand shall touch the pure fountains of justice.

John Eardley Wilmot Collins v. Blantern (1767)

What do I care about Jupiter? Justice is a human issue, and I do not need a god to teach it to me.

Jean-Paul Sartre The Flies (1943)

There are degrees of justice, Elijah. When the lesser is incompatible with the greater, the lesser must give way.

Isaac Asimov Robot series (1950)

But this is America. There is no them; there's only us. One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty, and justice, for all.

Bill Clinton A Place Called Hope (1992)

Repute of justice, not just act, thou wishest.

Aeschylus Oresteia (-458)

Beware of wishing for justice. You might get it.

Lois McMaster Bujold The Vor Game (1990)

Justice in holdings is historical; it depends upon what actually has happened. We shall return to this point later.

Robert Nozick Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974)

Dear and most respected bookcase! I welcome your existence, which has for over one hundred years been devoted to the radiant ideals of goodness and justice.

Anton Chekhov The Cherry Orchard (1904)

Laws are confusing documents. They get in the way of justice.

Paolo Bacigalupi The Windup Girl (2009)

And the goal was scored in the time added on for the largely bogus injury, we think, to Érika. Is there some kind of poetic justice in that?

Ian Darke

The true test of a democracy is the justice that the minority gets in the system. The majority will always get its share whatever the system.

M. J. Akbar

Our values are the same as the common values of humanity. Those are: peace, development, fairness, justice, freedom and democracy.

Yang Jiechi

There is no reason why a woman should not receive the same pay for the same work as a man. To argue otherwise is to argue against justice.

Elizabeth McCombs

Justice had to take second place to political expediency.

Ian Mortimer The Fears of Henry IV: The Life of England's Self-made King (2007)

a man clothed in huge strength,
a savage with no understanding of either justice or laws.

Anthony Verity The Odyssey (2018)

Never trust any note cited, when not consonant with the general principles of law, justice, and equity. It must be wrong.

William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Barry Goldwater

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