quotations about justice
Justice is what is established; and thus all our established laws will be regarded as just, without being examined, since they are established.
BLAISE PASCAL
Thoughts
Justice is like the kingdom of God--it is not without us as a fact, it is within us as a great yearning.
GEORGE ELIOT
Romola
Men are always invoking justice; and it is justice which should make them tremble.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Airelles," The Writings of Madame Swetchine
By justice a king gives a country stability.
BIBLE
Proverbs 29:4
Justice was revenge wrapping itself in a cloak of high principle.
IVAN KLIMA
Waiting for the Dark
The cry of the poor is not always just, but if you don't listen to it, you will never know what justice is.
HOWARD ZINN
A People's History of the United States
The need for justice grows out of the conflict of human interests. That is to say, if there were no conflict of interests among mankind we should never have invented the word justice, nor conceived the idea for which it stands.
THOMAS NIXON CARVER
Essays in Social Justice
Truth and justice, on the contrary, are the least universal, the youngest features in the development of human society.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
God and the State
Justice is a whore that won't let herself be stiffed, and collects the wages of shame even from the poor.
KARL KRAUS
"The Good Conduct Medal"
Every improvement in our conceptions of justice, as well as in the machinery for the administration of justice, whereby a closer approximation to exact justice may be secured, will make for social peace, though the mere adjudication of conflicting interests will not remove the conflicts themselves nor their cause. That lies deeper than legislatures or courts can probe.
THOMAS NIXON CARVER
Essays in Social Justice
God's justice, tardy though it prove perchance,
Rests never on the track until it reach
Delinquincy.
ROBERT BROWNING
Cenciaja
Justice, when carried to its final conclusion, often results in punishment, conflict, revenge and even war.
MASAO ABE
Buddhism and Interfaith Dialogue
The price of justice is eternal publicity.
ARNOLD BENNETT
"Secret Trials", Things That Have Interested Me
Justice is a glorious and a communicative virtue, ordained for the common good of mankind, without any regard to itself. This it is, that keeps men from worrying one another, and preserves tranquility in the world. It is the bond of human society.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
When there exists anywhere a state of suffering, a wrong, a condition of affairs that men of feeling deplore and that troubles the conscience of the upright, to become resigned to it is wicked. Although the evil flaunts itself before our eyes, and no remedy is in sight, we must go and seek a remedy. In the creation of the God of Justice, evil can be but a transitory state.
CHARLES WAGNER
Justice
Justice is a fading light.
SHERYL CROW
"Love is a Good Thing"
Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust. Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others. It does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the larger sum of advantages enjoyed by many. Therefore in a just society the liberties of equal citizenship are taken as settled; the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests.
JOHN RAWLS
A Theory of Justice
Justice lacking passion fails, betrays.
JANE HIRSHFIELD
"Justice Without Passion"
Sell anything for justice, but look out for counterfeits.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
There is one, and only one, thing in modern society more hideous than crime--namely, repressive justice.
SIMONE WEIL
"Human Personally"