Justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is therefore always represented as blind.
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.
Do not judge your fellow man until you have come into his situation.
I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
That whom he could not by the sword destroy, he might supplant by the law.
I am bound by my oath to abide by the law, and I cannot suffer anybody to derogate from it.
Heaven is above all yet, there sits a judge,
That no king can corrupt.
To offend, and judge, are distinct offices
And of opposed natures.
Bread is life to the poor; he who takes it from them is a murderer.