Quotes about justice

A collection of quotes on the topic of justice.

„I want to make all Europe and America know it – I want to make England feel her weakness if she refuses to give the justice we the Irish require – the restoration of our domestic parliament…“

— Daniel O'Connell Irish political leader 1775 - 1847

Speech given at a ‘monster’ meeting held at Drogheda, June, 1843.

„If you are emotionally attached to your tribe, religion or political leaning to the point that truth and justice become secondary considerations, your education and exposure is useless. If you cannot reason beyond petty sentiments, you are a liability.“

— Chuba Okadigbo Nigerian politician 1941 - 2003

Source: Fani-Kayode urges Buhari to take Okadigbo’s advice, Ifreke Inyang, 23 October 2017, Daily Post, Nigeria, 18 April 2018 http://dailypost.ng/2017/10/23/fani-kayode-urges-buhari-take-okadigbos-advice/,

Religion, Education, Truth

„Not justice, please, not justice. We would all be fools to pray for justice.“

— Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion

The Curse of Chalion (2000)
Context: "Mercy from the Father and the Mother, mercy from the Sister and the Brother, Mercy from the Bastard, five times mercy, High Ones, we beseech you."… Mercy, High Ones. Not justice, please, not justice. We would all be fools to pray for justice.

Fools

„I'm aware of the made up declarations about me that have recently begun to appear on the Internet and in emails as "Chuck Norris facts." I've seen some of them. Some are funny. Some are pretty far out. Being more a student of the Wild West than the wild world of the Internet, I'm not quite sure what to make of it. It's quite surprising. I do know that boys will be boys, and I neither take offense nor take these things too seriously. Who knows, maybe these made up one-liners will prompt young people to seek out the real facts as found in my recent autobiographical book, "Against All Odds?" They may even be interested enough to check out my novels set in the Old West, "The Justice Riders," released this month. I'm very proud of these literary efforts.“

— Chuck Norris American martial artist and actor 1940

Posted on Chuck Norris' website in 2005.

Appearance, Effort, Boy, World

„As far as socialism is concerned, it is not a heavenly message like Islam but a mere system for regulating the relations between man and his utilization of the means of production in this world. If we decide to regulate our national wealth, it is not against the essence of Islam. God has created man and has given him the faculty of mind to choose between good and bad, between virtue and vice. We have chose social justice instead of exploitation of man by man and this is how we can practically help the individual Muslim and direct him to [a] virtuous life. However, the reactionaries wanted to create a rift between socialism and Islam because socialism is not in their interest.“

— Siad Barre Head of State of Somalia 1919 - 1995

Speech (1972), as quoted by Ioan Myrddin (1980), A Modern History of Somalia, Wilture Enterprises (International) Ltd.

Wealth, Help, World, God

„Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override.“

— John Rawls, book A Theory of Justice

Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter I, Section 1, pg. 3-4
Context: 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.

Personality

„The concept of justice I take to be defined, then, by the role of its principles in assigning rights and duties and in defining the appropriate division of social advantages.“

— John Rawls, book A Theory of Justice

Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter I, Section 2, pg. 10
Context: The concept of justice I take to be defined, then, by the role of its principles in assigning rights and duties and in defining the appropriate division of social advantages. A conception of justice is an interpretation of this role.

„What secret knowledge, one must wonder, is breathed into lawyers when they become Justices of this Court, that enables them to discern that a practice which the text of the Constitution does not clearly proscribe, and which our people have regarded as constitutional for 200 years, is in fact unconstitutional? […] The Court must be living in another world. Day by day, case by case, it is busy designing a Constitution for a country I do not recognize.“

— Antonin Scalia former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States 1936 - 2016

Board of County Commissioners, Wabaunsee County, Kansas, v. Umbehr, 518 U.S. 668 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=U20028&friend=oyez, No. 94-1654 (1996, dissenting); decided June 28, 1996.
1990s

Country, Knowledge, Business, World

„The love of justice is simply in the majority of men the fear of suffering injustice.“

— François de La Rochefoucauld, book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

L'amour de la justice n'est en la plupart des hommes que la crainte de souffrir l'injustice.
Maxim 78.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

Suffering, Fear, Men, Love

„When it comes to consideration of how to do well in running the city, which must proceed entirely through justice and soundness of mind.“

— Protagoras pre-Socratic Greek philosopher -486 - -411 BC

As quoted in Protagoras by Plato

„You, Socrates, began by saying that virtue can't be taught, and now you are insisting on the opposite, trying to show that all things are knowledge, justice, soundness of mind, even courage, from which it would follow that virtue most certainly can be taught.“

— Protagoras pre-Socratic Greek philosopher -486 - -411 BC

As quoted in Protagoras by Plato

Knowledge, Courage

„We must stop constantly fighting for human rights and equal justice in an unjust system, and start building a society where equal rights are an integral part of the design.“

— Jacque Fresco American futurist and self-described social engineer 1916 - 2017

Source: The Best That Money Can't Buy: Beyond Politics, Poverty, & War (2002), p. 33.

Parting, Fight

„The voice of the majority is no proof of justice.“

— Friedrich Schiller German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright 1759 - 1805

As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts : Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors, Both Ancient and Modern (1891) edited by Tryon Edwards. p. 324

„The fact is that the average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth.“

— H.L. Mencken American journalist and writer 1880 - 1956

Baltimore Evening Sun (12 February 1923)
1920s
Context: The fact is that the average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth. He is not actually happy when free; he is uncomfortable, a bit alarmed, and intolerably lonely. Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men. It is the exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority, like knowledge, courage and honor. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty — and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies.

Sense, Truth, Love

„This is the criminal left that belongs not in a dormitory, but in a penitentiary. The criminal left is not a problem to be solved by the Department of Philosophy or the Department of English—it is a problem for the Department of Justice…. Black or white, the criminal left is interested in power. It is not interested in promoting the renewal and reforms that make democracy work; it is interested in promoting those collisions and conflict that tear democracy apart.“

— Spiro Agnew 39th Vice President of the United States 1918 - 1996

Speech at a Florida Republican dinner, Fort Lauderdale, Florida (April 28, 1970); reported in Collected Speeches of Spiro Agnew (1971), p. 135.

Tear, Problem, Democracy

„On the surface it may seem that wars are caused by economic and political questions, but in fact they are caused by our wholesale slaughter of animals. The laws of justice are inexorable, and human beings are going to have to pay with their own blood … We kill animals, but nature is an organic whole, and by killing animals we are, as it were, affecting certain glands in that organism. When this happens, the balance of the organism is disrupted, and it is not surprising that before long war breaks out among men. Yes, human beings have slaughtered millions of animals for their meat, without realizing that on the invisible plane those animals are linked to other human beings, and it is they who will now have to share the fate of the animals. When we slaughter animals we are slaughtering human beings. Everybody agrees that it is time to establish the reign of peace in the world, that there must be no more wars. Yes, but war will go on just as long as we continue to slaughter animals, because by destroying them we are destroying ourselves.“

— Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov Bulgarian philosopher 1900 - 1986

The Yoga of Nutrition, Editions Prosveta, 2012 ebook edition, pp. 24 https://books.google.it/books?id=jnoVCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT24-25.

Animals, Time, Nature, Question

„A man may stand for the justice of God, but a woman stands for His Mercy.“

— Fulton J. Sheen Catholic bishop and television presenter 1895 - 1979

Source: Life Is Worth Living

God

„It is a natural impulse of human beings to evade the narrowness of personal and family routine to venture into the wider universe of history, where you feel that your life is transcendent and get a higher "sense". The most banal and clumsy way to do it, accessible even to the poor, incapable and rogue is the militancy in a party or a "cause", that is, in some group embellished with pompous words like "freedom", "equality", "justice", "patriotism", "morality" or "human rights". These words can represent any substantive value, but not when the individual acquires from them all the value they may have, rather than filling them with his own personal substance. The most criminal illusion of modernity was to persuade men that they can be noble by identifying with a "cause", when in fact all causes, while names of abstract values, only acquire concrete value by the nobility of men who represent them. The bottom of degradation is achieved when some "causes" are so valued that they seem to infuse virtues automatically in any bum, fake or bandit who agrees to represent them.“

— Olavo de Carvalho Brazilian journalist, essayist and professor of philosophy 1947

Diário do Comércio - Causas Sagradas http://www.olavodecarvalho.org/semana/120117dc.html (17 January 2012)

Personality, Universe, Freedom, Sense

„Silence will create respect and dignity; justice and fairplay will bring more friends; benevolence and charity will enhance prestige and position; courtesy will draw benevolence; service of mankind will secure leadership and good words will overcome powerful enemies.“

— Ali, book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

Drawing, Silence

„Without the fear of God, men do not even observe justice and charity among themselves.“

— John Calvin, book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Source: Institutes of the Christian Religion

Fear, God, Men

„Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Etiam egestas wisi a erat. Morbi imperdiet, mauris ac auctor dictum.“

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Quotes about justice

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