Justice quotes
3.9K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside justice — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"It is a very grave matter to be forced to imitate a people for whom you know-which is the price of your performance and survival-you do not exist. It is hard to imitate a people whose existence appears, mainly, to be made tolerable by their bottomless gratitude that they are not, thank heaven, you."
"We reap what we sow, but nature has love over and above that justice, and gives us shadow and blossom and fruit, that spring from no planting of ours."
"If people will be censors, let them weigh their words. I mean that the words were unfair by that disproportionateness of the condemnation, which everybody with some conscience must feel to be one of the great difficulties in denouncing a particular person. Every unpleasant dog is only one of many, but we kick him because he comes in our way, and there is always some want of distributive justice in the kicking."
"Justice required resort to law and that could be a fickle mistress, subject always to the whims and prejudices of those who administered the laws."
"The wise fools who sit in the high places of justice fail to see that in revolutionary times vital issues are settled not by statutes, decrees and authorities, but in spite if them."
"All are presumed good till they are found at fault."
"Justice pleaseth few in their owne house. [Justice pleases few in their own house.]"
"Happy the youth who believes that his duty is to remake the world and bring it more in accord with virtue and justice, more in accord with his own heart. Woe to whoever commences his life without lunacy."
"I hope that the economic, financial and trade blockade against Cuba will be lifted, so that the economy can grow and wages can rise. But I also hope that we will not compromise our independence and become weak, and that we will never betray our ideals of equality and social justice. This is what our parents fought for, and we owe it to them."
"It is brought home to you...that it is only because miners sweat their guts out that superior persons can remain superior."
"You promised him vengeance as well.' 'I promised him justice.' 'Call it what you will. It still comes down to blood." - Tywin & Tyrion"
"I did not do it. Yet now I wish I had.’ He turned to face the hall, that sea of pale faces. ‘I wish I had enough poison for you all. You make me sorry that I am not the monster you would have me be, yet there it is. I am innocent, but I will get no justice here."
"I think some parts of the American justice system have gone haywire."
"One doesn't expect justice from life ... it's the function of human beings to put it there."
"Nothing is more inspiring to see how poor and suffering people, living under conditions incomparably worse than we endure, continue quietly and unpretentiously with courageous and committed struggle for justice and dignity."
"...dissent, protest, presures of a wide variety that escape elite control can modify the calculus of costs of planners, and offer a slight hope that Washington can be compelled to permit at least some steps towards "justice, freedom and democracy" within its domains."
"Clinton, Kennedy, they all carried out mass murder, but they didn't think that that was what they were doing - nor does Bush. You know, they were defending justice and democracy from greater evils."
"Why does everyone take for granted that we don't learn to grow arms, but rather, are designed to grow arms? Similarly, we should conclude that in the case of the development of moral systems; there's a biological endowment which in effect requires us to develop a system of moral judgment and a theory of justice, if you like, that in fact has detailed applicability over an enormous range."
"I am not too happy with terms like “the left”, to be honest. And I don’t use it much….if by “the left” you mean people who are committed to peace and justice and freedom and so on, there can’t be elements of the left opposed to workers’ movement, at least under that definition."
"I hope that a move toward clemency with Judge Afiuni would be a step towards the importance of maintaining a properly functioning justice system."
