quotations about justice
God's justice, tardy though it prove perchance,
Rests never on the track until it reach
Delinquincy.
ROBERT BROWNING
Cenciaja
Justice often leans to the side of the purse hand.
CROFT M. PENTZ
The Complete Book of Zingers
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
Fine as justice is, as an every day quality, it is not winning. It is lacking in warmth. We need something better. We need sympathy with the other fellow and kindness.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Getting On With People,", Reactions and Other Essays
Rats and roaches live by competition under the law of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.
WENDELL BERRY
The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry
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
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
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? Who asks for justice? We make our own justice ... Let us not rail about justice as long as we have arms and the freedom to use them.
FRANK HERBERT
Heretics of Dune
I'm armed with more than complete steel--
The justice of my quarrel.
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE
Lust's Dominion
Justice is primarily a possible, but not a necessary, quality of a social order regulating the mutual relations of men. Only secondarily it is a virtue of man, since a man is just, if his behavior conforms to the norms of a social order supposed to be just. But what does it really mean to say that a social order is just? It means that this order regulates the behavior of men in a way satisfactory to all men, that is to say, so that all men find their happiness in it. The longing for justice is men's eternal longing for happiness. It is happiness that men cannot find alone, as an isolated individual, and hence seeks in society. Justice is social happiness. It is happiness guaranteed by a social order.
HANS KELSEN
What Is Justice?
One of the most exquisite examples of justice in the New Testament ... is found in the crucifixion narrative as described by the writer of Luke's gospel (see Lk. 23:26-43), who portrays Jesus extending mercy to his persecutors and enemies: "Then Jesus said, 'Father forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing'" (v. 34). To those witnessing Jesus' crucifixion--both friends and foes--these words would have sounded foolish. And yet, paradoxically, these words of reconciliation could be understood as an expression of justice at its deepest level--justice that gives way to compassion toward those guilty of injustice who, for some reason, do not truly understand what they are doing or have done to another or others.
CAROL J. DEMPSEY
Justice: A Biblical Perspective
For the Lord is righteous, he loves justice; upright men will see his face.
BIBLE
Psalms 11:7
This, and no other, is justice: -- to consider, under all the circumstances and consequences of a particular case, how the greatest quantity and purest quality of happiness will ensue from any action ... there is no other justice.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
"Essay on Christianity"
Isn't it just as much the duty of the police to free the innocent, as to bring the guilty to justice?
SUSANNE ALLEYN
Game of Patience
Injustice alone can shake down the pillars of the skies, and restore the reign of Chaos and Night.
HORACE MANN
A Few Thoughts for a Young Man
Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither is, in my opinion, safe.
EDMUND BURKE
letter, Oct. 1789
The first request of civilization ... is that of justice.
SIGMUND FREUD
Civilization and Its Discontents
If you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine.
CHE GUEVARA
attributed, Words of Wisdom: Che Guevara