Quotes about justice
page 12

George W. Bush photo
Marcus Aurelius photo
Ron Paul photo
George W. Bush photo
Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood photo
Joan Robinson photo

“But once we bring historical time into the argument, it is not so easy to present the free play of the market as an ideal mechanism for maximizingwelfare and securing social justice.”

Joan Robinson (1903–1983) English economist

Source: Economic Heresies (1971), Chapter IV, Increasing and Diminishing Returns, p. 63

Bill Clinton photo

“Webb, if I put you over at Justice I want you to find the answers to two questions for me. One, who killed JFK? And two, are there UFOs?”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

To Webster Hubbell during his interview for Attorney General, 1992, according to Hubbell's book Friends in High Places (1997) http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_n2_v22/ai_20562397/
Attributed

Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Noam Chomsky photo
Michelle Obama photo
Clarence Thomas photo
George Will photo
Marcus Aurelius photo
Nina Totenberg photo

“[On Senator Jesse Helms] I think he ought to be worried about what's going on in the Good Lord's mind, because if there is retributive justice, he'll get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will.”

Nina Totenberg (1944) American political journalist

Inside Washington, PBS, July 8, 1995. http://web.archive.org/20031005201831/www.theadvocates.org/good/a0320.html
Quoted in "Hate speech of the left" by Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe, December 28, 2003. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/12/28/hate_speech_of_the_left/

“To each according to his threat advantage does not count as a principle of justice.”

Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter III, Section 24, pg. 141

Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor photo

“Let justice be done, though the world perish.”
Fiat iustitia et pereat mundus.

Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor (1503–1564) king of Bohemia and Hungary

Motto, quoted in Locorum Communium Collectanea (1563)

Woodrow Wilson photo
Stanley Baldwin photo
Isaac Barrow photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Lin Yutang photo

“The Chinese believe that when there are too many policemen, there can be no individual liberty, when there are too many lawyers, there can be no justice, and when there are too many soldiers, there can be no peace.”

Lin Yutang (1895–1976) Chinese writer

Between Tears And Laughter (1943), p. 71. Variant: "When there are too many policemen, there can be no liberty. When there are too many soldiers, there can be no peace. When there are too many lawyers, there can be no justice.", as quoted in The World's Funniest Laws (2005) by James Alexander, ISBN 1905102100, p. 6.

Mitt Romney photo

“But from the beginning, this nation trusted in God, not man. Religious liberty is the first freedom in our Constitution. And whether the cause is justice for the persecuted, compassion for the needy and the sick, or mercy for the child waiting to be born, there is no greater force for good in the nation than Christian conscience in action.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA, , quoted in [2012-05-13, In LU Speech, Romney Boldly Touts Faith, and Traditional American Values, Jason, Johnson, Bearing Drift, http://bearingdrift.com/2012/05/13/in-lu-speech-romney-boldly-touts-faith-and-traditional-american-values/, 2012-05-15]
2012

B. W. Powe photo

“Threaten the balances of justice and you threaten the potential enlargements of mind and soul. Therefore justice is part of the safeguarding of the heart.”

B. W. Powe (1955) Canadian writer

Emanations, Destinies, p. 61
Mystic Trudeau: The Fire and the Rose (2007)

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen photo
Euripidés photo

“The words of truth are naturally simple, and justice needs no subtle interpretations, for it has a fitness in itself”

ἁπλοῦς ὁ μῦθος τῆς ἀληθείας ἔφυ,
κοὐ ποικίλων δεῖ τἄνδιχ᾽ ἑρμηνευμάτων
Source: The Phoenician Women, Lines 469–470

“I am not for separatism from the United States. My motto is justice but not independence from or revolution against the United States.”

Reies Tijerina (1926–2015) American activist

Quoted in Chicano Power: The Emergence of Mexican America by Tony Castro, ISBN 0841503214.

Frederick Douglass photo
Lysander Spooner photo
Adam Smith photo
Jean Paul Sartre photo
Kunti photo
William Ewart Gladstone photo
Jean Baudrillard photo
José de San Martín photo

“From this moment on, Peru is free and independent by the general will of its people and by the justice of its cause that God defends. Long live the nation! Long live the freedom! Long live the independence!”

José de San Martín (1778–1850) Argentine general and independence leader

El Perú es desde este momento libre e independiente por la voluntad general de los pueblos y por la justicia de su causa que Dios defiende. ¡Viva la patria! ¡Viva la libertad! ¡Viva la independencia!
(Declaration of the Peruvian independence, July 28, 1821).

Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Angelique Rockas photo
Jeremy Corbyn photo
Clement Attlee photo
Eugene V. Debs photo
Henry Adams photo
Svetlana Alliluyeva photo
John Lancaster Spalding photo
Scott Ritter photo
Marcus Aurelius photo
Richard Dawkins photo

“The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved out of literally nothing, is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

"From tail to tale on the path of pilgrims in life" http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=374772005, The Scotsman ()

Paul Tillich photo

“There is no truth without the form of truth, namely justice.”

Paul Tillich (1886–1965) German-American theologian and philosopher

Source: Love, Power and Justice (1954), p. 21

Patrick Fitzgerald photo

“When citizens testify before grand juries they are required to tell the truth. Without the truth, our criminal justice system cannot serve our nation or its citizens.”

Patrick Fitzgerald (1960) American lawyer

CIA probe 'not over' after Cheney's top aide indicted on CNN.com (October 28, 2005)

Eric Holder photo
Jefferson Davis photo
Richard Cobden photo
Heinrich Mann photo
George W. Bush photo
Learned Hand photo

“Right knows no boundaries and justice no frontiers; the brotherhood of man is not a domestic institution.”

Learned Hand (1872–1961) American legal scholar, Court of Appeals judge

"A Pledge of Allegiance" - speech for "I Am an American Day" in Central Park, New York, New York. (20 May 1945).
Extra-judicial writings

John Adams photo
Orson Scott Card photo

“Even the devil gives some justice to his victims, when they're beyond all help.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Treason (1988)

Nayef Al-Rodhan photo

“Justice is paramount to civilisational triumph because of its centrality to human dignity needs, the success of individual geo-cultural domains and the well-being of human civilisation.”

Nayef Al-Rodhan (1959) philosopher, neuroscientist, geostrategist, and author

Source: Sustainable History and the Dignity of Man (2009), p.219

Bob Dylan photo
Henry Stephens Salt photo
James A. Garfield photo

“Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

Letter accepting the Republican nomination to run for President (12 July 1880)
1880s
Variant: Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.

Ai Weiwei photo
Benjamin N. Cardozo photo
Immanuel Kant photo
Aung San Suu Kyi photo

“The true measure of the justice of a system is the amount of protection it guarantees to the weakest.”

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945) State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy

In Quest of Democracy (1991)

Bernie Sanders photo
Lysander Spooner photo
William Ewart Gladstone photo
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon photo
Hugh Blair photo
Max Horkheimer photo
Harry V. Jaffa photo
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon photo
Plutarch photo
William Ewart Gladstone photo
Abraham Isaac Kook photo
Charles Evans Hughes photo

“…[I]n three notable instances the Court has suffered severely from self-inflicted wounds. The first of these was the Dred Scott case. … There the Supreme Court decided that Dred Scott, a negro, not being a citizen could not sue in the United States Courts and that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories. … [T]he grave injury that the Court sustained through its decision has been universally recognized. Its action was a public calamity. … [W]idespread and bitter attacks upon the judges who joined in the decision undermined confidence in the Court. … It was many years before the Court, even under new judges, was able to retrieve its reputation.…[The second instance was] the legal tender cases decided in 1870. … From the standpoint of the effect on public opinion there can be no doubt that the reopening of the case was a serious mistake and the overruling in such a short time, and by one vote, of the previous decision shook popular respect for the Court.… [The third instance happened] [t]wenty-five years later, when the Court had recovered its prestige, [and] its action in the income tax cases gave occasion for a bitter assault. … [After questions about the validity of the income tax] had been reserved owing to an equal division of the Court, a reargument was ordered and in the second decision the act was held to be unconstitutional by a majority of one. Justice Jackson was ill at the time of the first argument but took part in the final decision, voting in favor of the validity of the statute. It was evident that the result [holding the statute invalid] was brought about by a change in the vote of one of the judges who had participated in the first decision. … [T]he decision of such an important question by a majority of one after one judge had changed his vote aroused a criticism of the Court which has never been entirely stilled.”

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American judge

"The Supreme Court of the United States: Its Foundation, Methods and Achievements," Columbia University Press, p. 50 (1928). ISBN 1-893122-85-9.

Lew Rockwell photo

“In the end, what is really needed is a fundamental rethinking of the notion that the state rather than private markets must monopolize the provision of justice and security. This is the fatal conceit. No power granted to the state goes unabused. This power, among all possible powers, might be the most important one to take away from the state.”

Lew Rockwell (1944) American libertarian author and editor

As quoted in "The Police State Abolishes the Trial" http://mises.org/library/police-state-abolishes-trial, (30 September 2011), Mises Daily, The Ludwig von Mises Institute.
2010s

John Ashcroft photo
Lew Rockwell photo
Stanley Baldwin photo

“Justice is a virtue, but not one that makes people lovable.”

Alan Ryan (1940) British philosopher

Justice (1993)

John Ashcroft photo
Michel Foucault photo
George W. Bush photo
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston photo

“I am sure every Englishman who has a heart in his breast and a feeling of justice in his mind, sympathizes with those unfortunate Danes (cheers), and wishes that this country could have been able to draw the sword successfully in their defence (continued cheers); but I am satisfied that those who reflect on the season of the year when that war broke out, on the means which this country could have applied for deciding in one sense that issue, I am satisfied that those who make these reflections will think that we acted wisely in not embarking in that dispute. (Cheers.) To have sent a fleet in midwinter to the Baltic every sailor would tell you was an impossibility, but if it could have gone it would have been attended by no effectual result. Ships sailing on the sea cannot stop armies on land, and to have attempted to stop the progress of an army by sending a fleet to the Baltic would have been attempting to do that which it was not possible to accomplish. (Hear, hear.) If England could have sent an army, and although we all know how admirable that army is on the peace establishment, we must acknowledge that we have no means of sending out a force at all equal to cope with the 300,000 or 400,000 men whom the 30,000,000 or 40,000,000 of Germany could have pitted against us, and that such an attempt would only have insured a disgraceful discomfiture—not to the army, indeed, but to the Government which sent out an inferior force and expected it to cope successfully with a force so vastly superior. (Cheers.) … we did not think that the Danish cause would be considered as sufficiently British, and as sufficiently bearing on the interests and the security and the honour of England, as to make it justifiable to ask the country to make those exertions which such a war would render necessary.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Speech at Tiverton (23 August 1864) on the Second Schleswig War, quoted in ‘Lord Palmerston At Tiverton’, The Times (24 August 1864), p. 9.
1860s

W.E.B. Du Bois photo
Francis Escudero photo
Aleksey Mozgovoy photo

“[Criticizing the authorities of Lugansk People's Republic]: All who rose up here - rose up for the justice and supremacy of the PEOPLE! In the end, both sides got the same - murder.”

Aleksey Mozgovoy (1975–2015) pro-Russian rebel and warlord in Eastern Ukraine

In Russian: Все, кто поднимался здесь – поднимался за справедливость и главенство НАРОДА! В итоге, что одна, что другая сторона, получили одно – убийство.

Enoch Powell photo

“It is conventional to refer to the United Nations in hushed tones of respect and awe, as if it were the repository of justice and equity, speaking almost with the voice of God if not yet acting with the power of God. It is no such thing. Despite the fair-seeming terminology of its charter and its declarations, the reality both of the Assembly and of the Security Council is a concourse of self-seeking nations, obeying their own prejudices and pursuing their own interests. They have not changed their individual natures by being aggregated with others in a system of bogus democracy…Does anybody seriously suppose that the members of the United Nations, or of the Security Council, have been actuated in their decisions on the Argentine invasion of the Falklands by a pure desire to see right done and wrong reversed? That was the last thing on their minds. Everyone of them, from the United States to Peru, calculated its own interests and consulted its own ambitions. What moral authority can attach a summation of self-interest and prejudice? I am not saying that nations ought not to pursue their own interests; they ought and, in any case, they will. What I am saying is that those interests are not sanctified by being tumbled into a mixer and shaken up altogether. An assembly of national spokesmen is not magically transmuted into a glorious company of saints and martyrs. Its only redeeming feature is its impotence…The United Nations is a colossal coating of humbug poured, like icing over a birthday cake, over the naked ambitions and hostilities of the nations.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

'We have the will, we don't need the humbug', The Times (12 June 1982), p. 12
1980s

Ted Cruz photo
Calvin Coolidge photo