Quotes about justice
page 14

“If, therefore, our personal religious life is likely to be sapped by our devotion to social work, it would be a calamity second to none. But is it really likely that this will happen? The great aim underlying to whole social movement is the creation of a free, just, and brotherly social order. This is the greatest moral task conceivable. Its accomplishment is the manifest will of God for this generation. Every Christian motive is calling us to do it. If it is left undone, millions of lives will be condemned to a deepening moral degradation and to spiritual starvation. Does it look probable that we will lose our contact with God if we plunge too deeply into this work? Does it stand to reason that we shall go astray from Jesus Christ if we engage in the unequal conflict with organized wrong? What kind of ‘spirituality’ is it which is likely to get hurt by being put to work for justice and our fellow-men?”

Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) United States Baptist theologian

Source: Christianizing the Social Order (1912), p. 104

Life, Men, God, Motivation

“In the light, the earth remains our first and our last love. Our brothers are breathing under the same sky as we; justice is a living thing. Now is born that strange joy which helps one live and die, and which we shall never again postpone to a later time.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

The Rebel (1951)

Love, Light, Time, Help

“Life, in that it is life, necessarily entails justice.”

Martin Buber (1878–1965) German Jewish Existentialist philosopher and theologian

"Politics and Morality" in Be'ayot (April 1945), as published in A Land of Two Peoples : Martin Buber on Jews and Arabs (1983) edited by Paul Mendes-Flohr, p. 169

Life

“Kunti summoned the eternal god of justice to obtain offspring from him. And she offered without loss of time, sacrifices unto the god and began to duly repeat the formula that Durvasa had imparted to her some time before. 'O Kunti, what am I to give thee?' And Kunti too smiling in her turn, replied, 'Thou must even give me offspring.”

Kunti character from Indian epic Mahabharata

The Sun god appeared before Kunti
The Mahabharata/Book 1: Adi Parva/Section CXXIII

God, Smile, Loss, Time

“I venture to hope that…the Government will approach the question with a desire to deal in the most liberal manner they can with Ireland, and to give her, if need be, more than justice requires, in order that we may bring about peace. That would be good policy in the long run.”

James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce (1838–1922) British academic, jurist, historian and Liberal politician

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1921/jun/16/the-government-of-ireland#column_635 in the House of Lords (16 June 1921) during the Irish War of Independence 1920s

Peace, Hope, Question

“Numerous are the academic chairs, but rare are wise and noble teachers. Numerous and large are the lecture halls, but far from numerous the young men who genuinely thirst for truth and justice. Numerous are the wares that nature produces by the dozen, but her choice products are few.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Zahlreich sind die Lehrkanzeln, aber selten die weisen und edlen Lehrer. Zahlreich und groß sind die Hörsäle, doch wenig zahlreich die jungen Menschen, die ehrlich nach Wahrheit und Gerechtigkeit dürsten. Zahlreich spendet die Natur ihre Dutzendware, aber das Feinere erzeugt sie selten.
1930s, Mein Weltbild (My World-view) (1931)

Men, Truth, Nature, Teachers

“The inhabitants of this land are religious, affectionate, hospitable, genial and frank. They are fond of scientific pursuits, inclined to austerity of life, seekers after justice, contented, industrious, capable in affairs, loyal, truthful and constant… They one and all believe in the unity of God, and as to the reverence they pay to the images of stone and wood and the like, which simpletons regard as idolatry, it is not so.”

Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak (1551–1602) vizier

Ain-i-Akbari by Abul Fazl. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 2

Life, God, Truth

“Projects for integral human development cannot ignore coming generations, but need to be marked by solidarity and inter-generational justice”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

2009, Cartias in Vertitate (29 June 2009)

“There is no justice. There are occasional acts of vengeance, or regret, but there’s no real justice. In the natural scheme of things, it is not possible.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Epilogue (p. 421)
Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Odyssey (2006)

Nature

“I was filled with joy when studying quantum physics at the university as a means to understand the universe. But at the same time, I was preoccupied with the oppressive conditions in my country and the tyranny suffered by our universities, intellectuals, and the media. Like many others in our universities, I felt compelled to join the struggle for freedom. What we experience is a decades-old tyranny, that cannot tolerate freedom of speech and thought. In the name of religion, it restricts and punishes science, intellect, and even love. It labels as a threat to national security and toxic to society whatever is not compatible with its political and economic interests. It considers punishing unwelcome ideas as a positive thing. It does not tolerate differences of opinion; it responds to logic not by logic, discussion or dialog, but by suppression. By tyranny I mean a ruling power that tries to make only one voice—the voice of a ruling minority in Iran—dominant, with no regard for pluralism in the society. By tyranny I mean a judiciary that disregards even the Islamic Republic’s own constitution, and sentences intellectuals, writers, journalists, and political and civil activists to long prison terms, without due process and trial in a court of law. … By tyranny I mean power-holders who believe they stand above the law and who disregard justice and the urgent demands of the human conscience.”

Narges Mohammadi (1972) Iranian human rights activist

Letter Accepting 2018 Andrei Sakharov Prizefrom (2018)

Love, Religion, Law, Idea

“He like the Church he serves is blind and empty and vainglorious. This God they prattle on about, where’s His justice, where’s His compassion? Does it please Him to see dying people hounded in His name, does He snigger at His bumbling priests, is He satisfied when men drop dead chopping stone out for His temples, twisted little God dying tepid-faced on a cross…. She thought, I’ll go out and look for other gods, and maybe they’ll be better and anyway they can’t be worse.”

Keith Roberts book Pavane

Fourth measure “Lords and Ladies” (p. 169)
Pavane (1968)

Men, God, People, Dead

“It is fit that justice should be administered with great caution.”

Charles Abbott, 1st Baron Tenterden (1762–1832) British barrister and judge, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench

Rex v. Bowditch (1818), 2 Chit. Rep. 281.

“No matter who is the President, that person never has the authority to 'order' members of the Armed Forces to violate the Uniformed Code of Military Justice, their ethos, their oath or the international law of land combat.”

Mark Hertling (1953) United States Army general

As quoted in "A soldier's view on Trump" http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/04/opinions/donald-trump-military-hertling/index.html CNN, 4 March 2016

Law, Personality

“I should be inexcusable, considering the share I have formerly had in that unhappy business, if, upon this occasion, I should omit to mention the African slave-trade. I do not rank this amongst our national sins, because I hope, and believe, a very great majority of the nation earnestly long for its suppression. But, hitherto, petty and partial interest prevail against the voice of justice, humanity and truth. This enormity, however, is not sufficiently laid to heart. If you are justly shocked by what you hear of the cruelties practised in France, you would, perhaps, be shocked much more, if you could fully conceive of the evils and miseries inseparable from this traffic, which I apprehend, not from hearsay, but from my own observation, are equal in atrocity, and, perhaps superior in number, in the course of a single year, to any or all the worst actions which have been known in France since the commencement of their revolution. There is a cry of blood against us; a cry accumulated by the accession of fresh victims, of thousands, of scores of thousands, I had almost said of hundreds of thousands, from year to year.”

John Newton (1725–1807) Anglican clergyman and hymn-writer

As quoted in The Works of the Rev. John Newton... to which are Prefixed Memoirs of His Life (1839), Vol. 2, U. Hunt, pages 429-230.

Truth, Hope, Business, Evil

“Law is the gift of God, the model of equity, a standard of justice, a likeness of the divine will, the guardian of well-being, a bond of union and solidarity between peoples, a rule defining duties, a barrier against the vices and the destroyer thereof, a punishment of violence and all wrongdoing.”
Lex donum Dei est, æquitatis forma, norma justitiæ, divinæ voluntatis imago, salutis custodia, unio et consolidatio populorum, regula officiorum, exclusio et exterminatio vitiorum, violentiæ et totius injuriæ pœna.

John of Salisbury Policraticus

Bk. 8, ch. 17
Policraticus (1159)

God, People, Law

“You remember Thurlow's answer to some one complaining of the injustice of a company. "Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? they have neither a soul to lose, nor a body to kick."”

Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English writer and clergyman

Vol. I, ch. 11 http://books.google.com/books?id=RpYEAAAAYAAJ&q=&quot;You+remember+Thurlow's+answer+to+some+one+complaining+of+the+injustice+of+a+company+Why+you+never+expected+justice+from+a+company+did+you+they+have+neither+a+soul+to+lose+nor+a+body+to+kick&quot;&pg=PA331#v=onepage Lady Holland's Memoir (1855)

Soul

“With your spirit open and unconstricted, look at things from a high point of view. You must cultivate your wisdom and spirit. Polish your wisdom: learn public justice, distinguish between good and evil, study the Ways of different arts one by one. When you cannot be deceived by men you will have realised the wisdom of strategy.
The wisdom of strategy is different from other things. On the battlefield, even when you are hard-pressed, you should ceaselessly research the principles of strategy so that you can develop a steady spirit.”

Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) Japanese martial artist, writer, artist

Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Water Book

Wisdom, Men, Art, Way

“At a time in our history when the streets of the Nation's cities inspire fear and despair, rather than pride and hope, it is difficult to maintain objectivity and concern for our fellow citizens. But, the measure of a country's greatness is its ability to retain compassion in time of crisis. No nation in the recorded history of man has a greater tradition of revering justice and fair treatment for all its citizens in times of turmoil, confusion, and tension than ours. This is a country which stands tallest in troubled times, a country that clings to fundamental principles, cherishes its constitutional heritage, and rejects simple solutions that compromise the values that lie at the roots of our democratic system.”

Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993) Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court

Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, Concurring opinion (January 17, 1972)

Lie, Fear, Hope, History

“She really was a person who cared very much about others. She worked for justice and inclusion and making sure that women's voices were heard. She wasn't willing to just accept the world as we were told it was, but worked to help make it more beautiful. I am very grateful for her bringing that into my life.”

Adrianne Wadewitz (1977–2014) academic and Wikipedian

Molly Vetter, friend of Wadewitz — quoted in: Wetzel, Diane. (April 23, 2014). "NP grad, Wikipedia editor dies in Calif." http://www.nptelegraph.com/news/np-grad-wikipedia-editor-dies-in-calif/article_c7be4462-ab39-53ad-b3e8-9055b51d3bdf.html NPTelegraph.com. North Platte, Nebraska. — and: Wetzel, Diane (April 23, 2014). "North Platte grad, 37, Wikipedia editor, dies in climbing fall" http://www.omaha.com/article/20140423/NEWS/140429478/1707. Omaha World-Herald (Omaha, Nebraska). About

Life, Women, World, Beauty

“In the constitution of that rational animal I see no virtue which is opposed to justice, but I see a virtue which is opposed to love of pleasure, and that is temperance.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VIII, 39
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VIII

Love, Pleasure, Animals

“The day has passed for patching up the capitalist system; it must go. And in the work of abolishing it the Catholic and the Protestant, the Catholic and the Jew, the Catholic and the Freethinker, the Catholic and the Buddhist, the Catholic and the Mahometan will co-operate together, knowing no rivalry but the rivalry of endeavour toward an end beneficial to all. For, as we have said elsewhere, socialism is neither Protestant nor Catholic, Christian nor Freethinker, Buddhist, Mahometan, nor Jew; it is only Human. We of the socialist working class realise that as we suffer together we must work together that we may enjoy together. We reject the firebrand of capitalist warfare and offer you the olive leaf of brotherhood and justice to and for all.”

James Connolly (1868–1916) Irish republican and socialist leader

Labour, Nationality and Religion, in response to Father Robert Kane's lectures denouncing socialism, Catholicism and Socialism http://lxoa.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/catholicism-and-socialism/

Suffering

“T'riss sat down opposite the Warden, her expression thoughtful. 'Is civilisation nothing but an illusion, then?'
'Crowd control.'
'Excuse me?'
'That's all civilisation is, T'riss. A means by which we manage the proliferation of our kind. It increases in complexity the more of us there are. Laws keeps us muzzled and punishment delivers the necessary message when those laws are broken. Civilizations in decline are notable when certain of their members escape justice, and do so with impunity.”

Steven Erikson book Forge of Darkness

Forge of Darkness (2013)

Law

“Undoubtedly one of the most important provisions in the preparation for national defense is a proper and sound selective service act. Such a law ought to give authority for a very broad mobilization of all the resources of the country, both persons and materials. I can see some difficulties in the application of the principle, for it is the payment of a higher price that stimulates an increased production, but whenever it can be done without economic dislocation such limits ought to be established in time of war as would prevent so far as possible all kinds of profiteering. There is little defense which can be made of a system which puts some men in the ranks on very small pay and leaves others undisturbed to reap very large profits. Even the income tax, which recaptured for the benefit of the National Treasury alone about 75 per cent of such profits, while local governments took part of the remainder, is not a complete answer. The laying of taxes is, of course, in itself a conscription of whatever is necessary of the wealth of the country for national defense, but taxation does not meet the full requirements of the situation. In the advent of war, power should be lodged somewhere for the stabilization of prices as far as that might be possible in justice to the country and its defenders.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Toleration and Liberalism (1925)

Men, War, Law, Time

“Before we try to destroy someone else, we should first pass judgment on ourselves. Before finding fault with others, we must first pass judgment upon ourselves. Before we backbite others, we must first pass judgment upon our selves. Before we lie about others, we must first judge ourselves. Before we hurt the heart of another, we must first pass judgment on ourselves. Like that, we have to pass judgment on our thoughts and on all actions done by our eyes, ears, nose, hands, and mouth. The guilty ones are within our own body and mind. These are our qualities which exist in our actions. All these qualities exist within us, do they not? So we have to pass judgment on them. That is the state of Iman-Islam. That is what is called Islam. To first see the fault in yourself and then to pass judgment and correct yourself is true justice. Those who perform that justice are in the religion of truth. They are the leaders of the religion of truth. They are in the state of Iman-Islam. They are the true believers.”

Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (1900–1986) Sri Lankan Sufi leader

Benefit to All (undated)

Truth, Lie, Religion, Heart

“The military stand is that reconciliation is only possible after justice is served.”

Frank Bainimarama (1954) Prime Minister of Fiji

2000, Excerpts from an address to Fiji's Great Council of Chiefs, 28 July 2005

“Envy among other ingredients has a mixture of the love of justice in it. We are more angry at undeserved than at deserved good-fortune.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

No. 19
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

Love, Envy

“Thwackum was for doing justice, and leaving mercy to heaven.”

Henry Fielding (1707–1754) English novelist and dramatist

Book III, Ch. 10
The History of Tom Jones (1749)

“Every morning I speak to my conscience and the dialogue calms me down. I look at the country, read the newspaper, and think: 'All is becoming a reality little by little, piece by piece'. To be truthful, I should have had the copyright to it. Justice, TV, public order. I wrote about this 30 years ago…. Berlusconi is an extraordinary man, a man of action. This is what Italy needs: not a man of words, but a man of action.”

Licio Gelli (1919–2015) Italian financier, liaison with Nazi Germany, P2 grandmaster, involved in many scandals

Truth, Thinking, Reality, Reading

“While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation, while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candour, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world. Because we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. Oaths in this country are as yet universally considered as sacred obligations. That which you have taken, and so solemnly repeated on that venerable ground, is an ample pledge of your sincerity and devotion to your country and its government.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Letter to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, 11 October 1798, in Revolutionary Services and Civil Life of General William Hull http://books.google.com/books?id=E2kFAAAAQAAJ&dq=editions%3AVsZcW99fWPgC&pg=PA265#v=onepage&q&f=false (New York, 1848), pp 265-6. There are some differences in the version that appeared in The Works of John Adams (Boston, 1854), vol. 9, pp. 228-9 http://books.google.com/books?id=PZYKAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA228#v=onepage&q&f=false, most notably the words "or gallantry" instead of "and licentiousness". 1790s

People, World, Religion, Revenge

“One may speculate whether the contemporary idea of American society in decay is not a false notion which has been created, at least partially, by this old movie portrait of a society that was once stable, orderly and governed by the immutable justice of the Hollywood censorship code.
This is the ever-popular myth of a golden age which persuades so many generations that there was once a wonderful moment in the past when the world was sound and good people ruled and evil was justly punished. After Camelot came chaos and despair, except, of course, that Camelot never existed, any more than the world portrayed by those old Hollywood films existed.”

Russell Baker (1925–2019) writer and satirst from the United States

"Golden Oldies" (p.293)
So This Is Depravity (1980)

People, Age, World, Idea

“Practice justice in word and deed, and do not get in the habit of acting thoughtlessly about anything.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

As quoted in Divine Harmony: The Life and Teachings of Pythagoras by John Strohmeier and Peter Westbrook. (1999)
The Golden Verses

“It is in the total conduct of men rather than in their statements that truth or falsehood lives, more in what a man does, in his real reaction to other men and to things, in his will to do them justice, to live at one with them. Here lies the inner connection between truth and justice. In the realm of behavior and action, the problem recurs as to the difference between piece and part.”

Max Wertheimer (1880–1943) Co-founder of Gestalt psychology

Source: "On Truth," 1934, p. 28 (1961 edition)

Men, Truth, Behavior, Problem

“Justice White's conclusion is perhaps correct, if one assumes that the task of a court of law is to plumb the intent of the particular Congress that enacted a particular provision. That methodology is not mine nor, I think, the one that courts have traditionally followed. It is our task, as I see it, not to enter the minds of the Members of Congress - who need have nothing in mind in order for their votes to be both lawful and effective - but rather to give fair and reasonable meaning to the text of the United States Code, adopted by various Congresses at various times.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Pennsylvania v. Union Gas Co., 491 U.S. 1 (1989) (concurring in part and dissenting in part).
1980s

Law, Thinking, Time

“There is but one law for all, namely, that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity — the law of nature, and of nations.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

28 May 1794
On the Impeachment of Warren Hastings (1788-1794)

Law, Nature

“There is a saying 'justice delayed is justice denied'. Everyone knows of it, you do too. I have done three major things in Gujarat. I have increased court hours by 30 minutes every day; reduced court vacations by seven days; started evening courts with the same infrastructure.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

2009, "The nation is waiting for a strong, experienced leader", 2009

“…if peace is to be preserved we must see to it that the causes of war are removed. Freedom and democracy must be based not only on security but also on social justice. Hitlerism flourished on the breakdown of an outworn economic system. The world depression of 1930 was the opportunity of the gangsters. We must have planning for expansion and not restriction. Victory in war could only be achieved by putting the interest of the community before private profit and this was also the key to reconstruction after the war. Socialism had always been something far greater than an economic theory, far greater than the policy of a political party. It was a way of life. They sought to attain an organized society in which every human being would have the opportunity of living the good life—a society in which free men and women would cooperate together for the common good. The workers of the countries which had been under the yoke of tyranny would look to the Labour parties of the British Commonwealth for a lead and would not look in vain.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the conference of representatives of the British and Dominion Labour parties, Westminster, London (12 September 1944), quoted in The Times (13 September 1944), p. 8.
War Cabinet

Life, Women, Men, War

“From the day the President announced my nomination as the Attorney General of the United States three months ago, I have thought often about how to best prepare to meet the awesome responsibilities of this office. Outside these walls, the cries of those powerless souls who are injured, disenfranchised or otherwise aggrieved may indeed be faint. But those same pleas for help echo powerfully within the Department of Justice. Every day, like a steady drumbeat we are asked to provide an answer to a problem, to secure a remedy, to be a champion — and every day this Department responds as it has done so time and time again throughout the history of our beloved America.”

Alberto Gonzales (1955) 80th United States Attorney General

Remarks at his installation as Attorney General http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/2005/02142005_aggonzales.htm (February 14, 2005).

Soul, History, Problem, Time

“As I understand the various opinions today: One Justice holds that two-parent notification is unconstitutional (at least in present circumstances) without judicial bypass, but constitutional with bypass […]; four Justices would hold that two-parent notification is constitutional with or without bypass […]; four Justices would hold that two-parent notification is unconstitutional with or without bypass, though the four apply two different standards […]; six Justices hold that one-parent notification with bypass is constitutional, though for two different sets of reasons […]; and three Justices would hold that one-parent notification with bypass is unconstitutional […]. One will search in vain the document we are supposed to be construing for text that provides the basis for the argument over these distinctions and will find in our society’s tradition regarding abortion no hint that the distinctions are constitutionally relevant, much less any indication how a constitutional argument about them ought to be resolved. The random and unpredictable results of our consequently unchanneled individual views make it increasingly evident, Term after Term, that the tools for this job are not to be found in the lawyer’s – and hence not in the judges – workbox. I continue to dissent from this enterprise of devising an Abortion Code, and from the illusion that we have authority to do so.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

On whether a state law may require notification of both parents before a minor can obtain an abortion; Hodgson v. Minnesota (1990, concurring in the judgment and dissenting in part), 497 U.S. 417 http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/497/417.html, No. 88-605 ; decided June 25, 1990 1990s

Search, Understanding, Parent

“While this nation is guilty of the enslavement of three millions of innocent men and women, it is as idle to think of having a sound and lasting peace, as it is to think there is no God to take cognizance of the affairs of men. There can be no peace to the wicked while slavery continues in the land. It will be condemned; and while it is condemned there will be agitation. Nature must cease to be nature; men must become monsters; humanity must be transformed; Christianity must be exterminated; all ideas of justice and the laws of eternal goodness must be utterly blotted out from the human soul—ere a system so foul and infernal can escape condemnation, or this guilty republic can have a sound, enduring peace.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

The Nature of Slavery. Extract from a Lecture on Slavery, at Rochester, December 1, 1850
1850s, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855)

Women, Men, God, Peace

“Justice is a constant uprightness in words and in deeds.”

Alexander Hume

Four Discoveries of Praise to God, eds. ‎C. Matthew McMahon and ‎Therese B. McMahon (Puritan Publications, 2012), Ch. 2, p. 28

“Neither fairness nor justice, neither reality nor humanity can be simulated or manipulated by wires or remote controls.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2000-09, Happiness Can’t Be Faked, 2008

Reality

“This privileged position (lawyer) obliges you to remember that most of the population cannot afford your services or fees. As a consequence they are denied access to justice. It therefore behoves the legal profession to consider practical ways of alleviating this unacceptable state of affairs.”

Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) Fijian politician

Speech to the Fiji Law Society, 2 July 2005.

Way

“They are unfettered by precedent in the administration of justice. Customs have been handed down by ages of repetition, but the punishment for ignoring a custom is a matter for individual treatment by a jury of the culprit’s peers, and I may say that justice seldom misses fire, but seems rather to rule in inverse ratio to the ascendency of law. In one respect at least the Martians are a happy people; they have no lawyers.”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book A Princess of Mars

Source: A Princess of Mars (1917), Chapter 9

Happiness, People, Age, Law

“We have fought this war and won it. Now let us not be sanctimonious; nor hypocritical; nor vengeful; nor stupid. Let us make our enemies incapable of ever making war again, let us re-educate them, let us learn to live in peace and justice with all countries and all peoples in this world. To do this we must educate and re-educate. But first we must educate ourselves.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Introduction to Treasury of the Free World (1946)

War, People, Stupidity, World

“No analysis of the limits of economic freedom or the uses of coercion by government, labor unions, or organizations of any kind can do justice to the complexity of the subject without taking account of the distinction between collective and noncollective goods.”

Mancur Olson book The Logic of Collective Action

The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (1965), III. The Labor Union and Economic Freedom

Freedom

“Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask for a moment of silence here in this chamber to remember our fallen colleague, my predecessor representing the San Francisco Peninsula in Congress, Leo Ryan, and to honor his work for justice and human rights.”

Tom Lantos (1928–2008) American politician

"Congressman Tom Lantos' Remarks on the 25th Anniversary of the Tragedy at Jonestown and the Death of Congressman Leo Ryan," United States Congressional Record (2003-11-17

Silence

“Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.”

Sonia Sotomayor (1954) U.S. Supreme Court Justice

Address to the Raising the Bar symposium (2001)

Life, Hope, Universe

“The comparison here implied between the actions of one of the higher animals and of one so low in the scale as an earth-worm, may appear far-fetched; for we thus attribute to the worm attention and some mental power, nevertheless I can see no reason to doubt the justice of the comparison.”

Charles Darwin book The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms

Source: The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms (1881), Chapter 1: Habits of Worms, pp. 24-25. http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=39&itemID=F1357&viewtype=image

Appearance, Animals

“Justice to others and to ourselves is the same; that we cannot define our duties by mathematical lines ruled by the square, but must fill with them the great circle traced by the compasses”

Albert Pike book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry

Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. III : The Master, p. 72

Mathematics

“It is ugly to be punishable, but there is no glory in punishing. Hence the double system of protection that justice has set up between itself and the punishment it imposes.”

Michel Foucault book Discipline and Punish

Source: Discipline and Punish (1977), pp. 10

“In the study of such events we do well to remember that the hand once nailed to the tree holds the chain that binds the past, the present, and the future. His way is in the sea, His path is in the great waters, and His footsteps are not known. But wisdom marks His plans; truth and justice attend their development, and out of seeming evil He brings triumphant good.”

John Lanahan (1815–1903)

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 425.

Wisdom, Truth, Way, Tree

“The fall of the patriciate by no means divested the Roman commonwealth of its aristocratic character. We have already indicated that the plebeian party carried within it that character from the first as well as, and in some sense still more decidedly than, the patriciate; for, while in the old body of burgesses an absolute equality of rights prevailed, the new constitution set out from a distinction between the senatorial houses who were privileged in point of burgess rights and of burgess usufructs, and the mass of the other citizens. Immediately, therefore, on the abolition of the patriciate and the formal establishment of civic equality, a new aristocracy and a corresponding opposition were formed; and we have already shown how the former engrafted itself as it were on the fallen patriciate, and how, accordingly, the first movements of the new party of progress were mixed up with the last movements of the old opposition between the orders. The formation of these new parties began in the fifth century, but they assumed their definite shape only in the century which followed. The development of this internal change is, as it were, drowned amidst the noise of the great wars and victories, and not merely so, but the process of formation is in this case more withdrawn from view than any other in Roman history. Like a crust of ice gathering imperceptibly over the surface of a stream and imperceptibly confining it more and more, this new Roman aristocracy silently arose; and not less imperceptibly, like the current concealing itself beneath and slowly extending, there arose in opposition to it the new party of progress. It is very difficult to sum up in a general historical view the several, individually insignificant, traces of these two antagonistic movements, which do not for the present yield their historical product in any distinct actual catastrophe. But the freedom hitherto enjoyed in the commonwealth was undermined, and the foundation for future revolutions was laid, during this epoch; and the delineation of these as well as of the development of Rome in general would remain imperfect, if we should fail to give some idea of the strength of that encrusting ice, of the growth of the current beneath, and of the fearful moaning and cracking that foretold the mighty breaking up which was at hand. The Roman nobility attached itself, in form, to earlier institutions belonging to the times of the patriciate. Persons who once had filled the highest ordinary magistracies of the state not only, as a matter of course, practically enjoyed all along a higher honour, but also had at an early period certain honorary privileges associated with their position. The most ancient of these was doubtless the permission given to the descendants of such magistrates to place the wax images of these illustrious ancestors after their death in the family hall, along the wall where the pedigree was painted, and to have these images carried, on occasion of the death of members of the family, in the funeral procession.. the honouring of images was regarded in the Italo-Hellenic view as unrepublican, and on that account the Roman state-police did not at all tolerate the exhibition of effigies of the living, and strictly superintended that of effigies of the dead. With this privilege were associated various external insignia, reserved by law or custom for such magistrates and their descendants:--the golden finger-ring of the men, the silver-mounted trappings of the youths, the purple border on the toga and the golden amulet-case of the boys--trifling matters, but still important in a community where civic equality even in external appearance was so strictly adhered to, and where, even during the second Punic war, a burgess was arrested and kept for years in prison because he had appeared in public, in a manner not sanctioned by law, with a garland of roses upon his head.(6) These distinctions may perhaps have already existed partially in the time of the patrician government, and, so long as families of higher and humbler rank were distinguished within the patriciate, may have served as external insignia for the former; but they certainly only acquired political importance in consequence of the change of constitution in 387, by which the plebeian families that attained the consulate were placed on a footing of equal privilege with the patrician families, all of whom were now probably entitled to carry images of their ancestors. Moreover, it was now settled that the offices of state to which these hereditary privileges were attached should include neither the lower nor the extraordinary magistracies nor the tribunate of the plebs, but merely the consulship, the praetorship which stood on the same level with it,(7) and the curule aedileship, which bore a part in the administration of public justice and consequently in the exercise of the sovereign powers of the state.(8) Although this plebeian nobility, in the strict sense of the term, could only be formed after the curule offices were opened to plebeians, yet it exhibited in a short time, if not at the very first, a certain compactness of organization--doubtless because such a nobility had long been prefigured in the old senatorial plebeian families. The result of the Licinian laws in reality therefore amounted nearly to what we should now call the creation of a batch of peers. Now that the plebeian families ennobled by their curule ancestors were united into one body with the patrician families and acquired a distinctive position and distinguished power in the commonwealth, the Romans had again arrived at the point whence they had started; there was once more not merely a governing aristocracy and a hereditary nobility--both of which in fact had never disappeared--but there was a governing hereditary nobility, and the feud between the gentes in possession of the government and the commons rising in revolt against the gentes could not but begin afresh. And matters very soon reached that stage. The nobility was not content with its honorary privileges which were matters of comparative indifference, but strove after separate and sole political power, and sought to convert the most important institutions of the state--the senate and the equestrian order--from organs of the commonwealth into organs of the plebeio-patrician aristocracy.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

The History of Rome - Volume 2

Death, Men, War, Youth

“At first I thought the exhaustive, nonstop coverage of the O. J. Simpson trial was just an unfortunate excess — an unwelcome departure from the normal good sense and judgment of our television news media. Now we know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time: the Michael Jackson trial and the Robert Blake trial, the Laci Peterson tragedy and the Chandra Levy tragedy, Britney and KFed, Lindsay and Paris and Nicole.
While American television watchers were collectively devoting 100 million hours of their lives each week to these and other similar stories, our nation was in the process of more quietly making what future historians will certainly describe as a series of catastrophically mistaken decisions on issues of war and peace, the global climate and human survival, freedom and barbarity, justice and fairness. For example, hardly anyone now disagrees that the choice to invade Iraq was a grievous mistake. Yet, incredibly, all of the evidence and arguments necessary to have made the right decision were available at the time and in hindsight are glaringly obvious.”

Al Gore (1948) 45th Vice President of the United States

Quotes, The Assault on Reason (2007)

War, Peace, Departure, Decision

“I think my greatest usefulness lies in what I've had the opportunity to demonstrate -that the most "hopeless" criminal in existence can be salvaged; that he's worth salvaging, on both humanitarian and hard-headed social grounds. Retributive justice and the execution chamber aren't the answer. In seeking a solution to the crime problem, I believe that vision can and should be substituted for vengeance. I'm convinced that there is much that is narrow and negative and wrong in society's attitude toward and treatment of the man who is said to be at "war" with it, and who often is at war with himself.”

Caryl Chessman (1921–1960) Convicted robber, kidnapper and rapist, writer

Caryl Chessman, Cell 2455, Death Row, New Jersey, 1960, p. 372

War, Problem, Thinking

“[T]he quest for a social world that can better do justice to a being whose most remarkable quality is precisely the power to overcome and revise, with time, every social or mental structure in which he moves.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger (1947) Brazilian philosopher and politician

Source: The Critical Legal Studies Movementː Another Time, A Greater Task (2015), p. 105

World, Time

“The natural leaning of our minds is in favour of prisoners; and in the mild manner in which the laws of this country are executed, it has rather been a subject of complaint by some that the Judges have given way too easily to mere formal objections on behalf of prisoners, and have been too ready on slight grounds to make favourable representations of their cases. Lord Hale himself, one of the greatest and best men who ever sat in judgment, considered this extreme facility as a great blemish, owing to which more offenders escaped than by the manifestation of their innocence." We must, however, take care not to carry this disposition too far, lest we loosen the bands of society, which is kept together by the hope of reward, and the fear of punishment. It has been always considered, that the Judges in our foreign possessions abroad were not bound by the rules of proceeding in our Courts here. Their laws are often altogether distinct from our own. Such is the case in India and other places. On appeals to the Privy Council from our colonies, no formal objections are attended to, if the substance of the matter or the corpus delicti sufficiently appear to enable them to get at the truth and justice of the case.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron

King v. Suddis (1800), 1 East, 314. Lord Kenyon is later reported to have written, "I once before had occasion to refer to the opinion of a most eminent Judge, who was a great Crown lawyer, upon the subject, I mean Lord Hale; who even in his time lamented the too great strictness which had been required in indictments, and which had grown to be a blemish and inconvenience in the law; and observed that more offenders escaped by the over easy ear given to exceptions in indictments than by their own innocence". King v. Airey (c. 1800), 2 East, 34.

Men, Truth, Fear, Law

“Let us go forward in the good work we have in hand and let us put our trust, not in squires and peers, and not in titles or in acres; I will go further and say, not in man, as such, but in Almighty God, who is the God of justice, and who has ordained the principle of right, of equity, and of freedom to be the guides and the masters of our lives.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Edinburgh (30 June 1892), quoted in The Times (1 July 1892), p. 12.
1890s

God, Freedom

“Every object and purpose of justice is effectually answered, and every supposed inconvenience is effectually rebutted by the law as it stands.”

Sir John Bayley, 1st Baronet (1763–1841) British judge

King v. Woolf (1819), 1 Chit. 423.

Law

“In its mad passion for power, the Communist State even sought to strengthen and deepen the very ideas and conceptions which the Revolution had come to destroy. It supported and encouraged all the worst antisocial qualities and systematically destroyed the already awakened conception of the new revolutionary values.
The sense of justice and equality, the love of liberty and of human brotherhood — these fundamentals of the real regeneration of society — the Communist State suppressed to the point of extermination. Man's instinctive sense of equity was branded as weak sentimentality; human dignity and liberty became a bourgeois superstition; the sanctity of life, which is the very essence of social reconstruction, was condemned as unrevolutionary, almost counter-revolutionary. This fearful perversion of fundamental values bore within itself the seed of destruction.”

Emma Goldman book My Disillusionment in Russia

My Disillusionment in Russia (1923)

Love, Life, Fear, Idea

“This was an attempt of not creating 'forward looking judges' but the 'judges looking forward' to the plumes of the office of Chief Justice.”

Mohammad Hidayatullah (1905–1992) 11th Chief Justice of India

When three eminent judges of the Supreme Court, Hegde, Shelat and Grover JJ were superseded and Justice A. N. Ray was appointed as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court on 25th April, 1973 Source: Long March of the Supreme Court Bar Association http://www.lexsite.com/services/network/scba/history.shtml, LexSite.com

“I knew Earl Warren very well, on a somewhat professional basis. Professional, as in I was a nine-year-old page boy and he was the Governor. We knew his children and played in the Governor's Mansion and so forth. I have a letter I've given to the Supreme Court Historical Society, in which he wrote and said, "You're going to go very far in government." I'm very proud of the fact that I knew well someone who later became the Chief Justice of the United States.”

Anthony Kennedy (1936) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Interview for Academy of Achievement (3 June 2005).

Children, Boy

“We are approaching the point where more and more Palestinians will say: we have been won over. We agree with [National Union leader Avigdor] Liberman. There is no room for two states between the Jordan and the sea. All that we want is the right to vote. The day they do that, is the day we lose everything. Even when they carry out terror, it is very difficult for us to persuade the world of the justice of our cause. We see this on a daily basis. All the more so when there is only one demand: an equal right to vote. The thought that the struggle against us will be headed by liberal Jewish organizations who shouldered the burden of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa scares me.”

Ehud Olmert (1945) Israeli politician, prime minister of Israel

http://www.mideastweb.org/log/archives/00000128.htm

World, Sea

“Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.”

Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929) French politician

As quoted in The Unlawful Concert : An Account of the Presidio Mutiny Case (1970) by Fred Gardner.
Unsourced French: Il suffit d'ajouter "militaire" à un mot pour lui faire perdre sa signification. Ainsi la justice militaire n'est pas la justice, la musique militaire n'est pas la musique.
It suffices to add "military" to a word for it to lose its meaning. Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.

Music

“The right to free expression and assembly has been cast aside, and the number of ordinary people incarcerated is growing by the day. The Turkish government led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, known as the A. K. P., has turned its back on universal democratic values and pushed the country to the brink of political and economic crisis.”

Selahattin Demirtaş (1973) Turkish Kurdish politician

I Am Running for President in Turkey. From My Prison Cell. (2018)

People, Universe, Country

“Now there was one of these Essens, whose name was Manahem, who had this testimony, that he not only conducted his life after an excellent manner, but had the foreknowledge of future events given him by God also. This man once saw Herod when he was a child, and going to school, and saluted him as king of the Jews; but he, thinking that either he did not know him, or that he was in jest, put him in mind that he was but a private man; but Manahem smiled to himself, and clapped him on his backside with his hand, and said," However that be, thou wilt be king, and wilt begin thy reign happily, for God finds thee worthy of it. And do thou remember the blows that Manahem hath given thee, as being a signal of the change of thy fortune. And truly this will be the best reasoning for thee, that thou love justice [towards men], and piety towards God, and clemency towards thy citizens; yet do I know how thy whole conduct will be, that thou wilt not be such a one, for thou wilt excel all men in happiness, and obtain an everlasting reputation, but wilt forget piety and righteousness; and these crimes will not be concealed from God, at the conclusion of thy life, when thou wilt find that he will be mindful of them, and punish time for them." Now at that time Herod did not at all attend to what Manahem said, as having no hopes of such advancement; but a little afterward, when he was so fortunate as to be advanced to the dignity of king, and was in the height of his dominion, he sent for Manahem, and asked him how long he should reign. Manahem did not tell him the full length of his reign; wherefore, upon that silence of his, he asked him further, whether he should reign ten years or not? He replied, "Yes, twenty, nay, thirty years;" but did not assign the just determinate limit of his reign. Herod was satisfied with these replies, and gave Manahem his hand, and dismissed him; and from that time he continued to honor all the Essens. We have thought it proper to relate these facts to our readers, how strange soever they be, and to declare what hath happened among us, because many of these Essens have, by their excellent virtue, been thought worthy of this knowledge of Divine revelations.”

Josephus on the Essenes

AJ 15.11.4-5
Antiquities of the Jews

Love, Life, Men, God

“And that’s when things get messy. When people begin moving beyond charity and toward justice and solidarity with the poor and oppressed, as Jesus did, they get in trouble. Once we are actually friends with the folks in struggle, we start to ask why people are poor, which is never as popular as giving to charity. One of my friends has a shirt marked with the words of late Catholic bishop Dom Helder Camara: “When I fed the hungry, they called me a saint. When I asked why people are hungry, they called me a communist.” Charity wins awards and applause but joining the poor gets you killed. People do not get crucified for living out of love that disrupts the social order that calls forth a new world. People are not crucified for helping poor people. People are crucified for joining them.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

The Irresistible Revolution (2006)

Love, People, World, Help

“It is a maxim in our law that a plaintiff must shew that he stands on a fair ground when he calls on a Court of justice to administer relief to him.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron

Booth v. Hodgson (1795), 6 T. R. 409.

Law

“Progressives have convinced people that they are fighting theft. If a greedy capitalist has looted your possessions, you would want the government to do something about it. An essential function of government is to bring thieves to justice and to restore stolen possessions to their rightful owners. If the progressive critique is valid, then it doesn't matter if government does it inefficiently, since there is no one else to do the job: inefficient justice is better than no justice. Moreover, when we ask the police to go after bad guys and repossess their stolen goods, we aren't concerned with whether we foster virtue among the "giver" and gratitude in the "receiver." That's because the giver isn't really giving; he's merely giving back, and the receiver has no cause for gratitude since he (or she) is merely being made whole. In this scenario, Americans who are sitting in the bandwagon have earned that right, and the people pulling are the thieves who deserve to be penalized and castigated. This is why I've devoted the bulk of this book to refuting the theft critique. If I've succeeded, then the whole progressive argument collapses and our federal government, far from being an instrument of justice, now becomes an instrument of plunder.”

Dinesh D'Souza (1961) Indian-American political commentator, filmmaker, author

Source: Books, America: Imagine a World without Her (2014), Ch. 14

People, Books, Guy, Fight

“Let us now consider whether justice requires the toleration of the intolerant, and if so under what conditions. There are a variety of situations in which this question arises. Some political parties in democratic states hold doctrines that commit them to suppress the constitutional liberties whenever they have the power. Again, there are those who reject intellectual freedom but who nevertheless hold positions in the university. It may appear that toleration in these cases is inconsistent with the principles of justice, or at any rate not required by them.”

John Rawls book A Theory of Justice

Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), p. 216

Question, Freedom, Universe, Appearance

“Three conclusions can be safely drawn from a study of these 21 inscriptions. Firstly, the destruction of Hindu temples continued throughout the Muslim rule, from the date of its first establishment at Delhi in AD 1192 to its downfall with the death of the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah in 1748. Secondly, the destruction took place all over India and was undertaken by rulers belonging to all Muslim dynasties, imperial as well as provincial. Thirdly, the destruction had no economic or political motive as has been proposed by Marxist scholars and Muslim apologists; it was inspired by religious zeal and regarded as a pious performance by Muslim kings and commanders, all of whom took considerable pride in it and sought blessing from Allãh and the Prophet. The iconoclasts, it may be added, have been idolised all along as paragons of faith, virtue, justice and generosity. These conclusions become clearer still when we come to evidence from Islamic literary sources.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume II (1993)

Death, Faith, Motivation, Study

“It is gratifying to report that the progress of industry, the enormous increase in individual productivity through labor-saving devices, and the high rate of wages have all combined to furnish our people in general with such an abundance not only of the necessaries but of the conveniences of life that we are by a natural evolution solving our problems of economic and social justice.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Second State of the Union Address (1924)

Life, People, Nature, Problem

“[The Kellog Pact is] a mighty moral bulwark against war - and we must never underestimate the effectiveness of moral bulwarks with no bayonet nor bludgeon behind them. The entry of the United States into the Permanent Court of International Justice, the growing confidence in the court, and the increase in the number of nations who have signed the Optional Clause mark definite and, I believe, irrevocable steps in the displacement of military power by judicial process in the settlement of international disputes. Public servants like us will fail in our duty if we do not diminish military power in proportion to the increase of political security…I dare affirm that, in the naval programme of the leading naval powers, there is a margin between real security needs and actual or projected strength, and the world expects this Conference to eliminate that margin.”

Ramsay MacDonald (1866–1937) British statesman; prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech as chairman of the London Naval Conference (January 1930), quoted in David Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald (Metro, 1997), p. 510
1930s

War, World, Confidence

“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)

Love, Men, Fear, Suffering

“By determining law — so far as it is the subject of a specific science of law — as norm, it is delimited against nature; and science of law against natural science. But in addition to legal norms, there are other norms regulating the behavior of men to each other, that is, social norms; and the science of law is therefore not the only discipline directed toward the cognition and description of social norms. There other social norms may be called “morals.” and the discipline directed toward their cognition and description, “ethics.” So far as justice is a postulate of morals, the relationship between justice and law is included in the relationship between morals and law.”

Hans Kelsen book Pure Theory of Law

Pure Theory of Law (revised ed., 1960), 7. Moral Norms as Social Norms

Men, Law, Behavior, Nature

“A plaintiff who comes into a Court of justice must show that he is in a condition to maintain his action.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron

Morton v. Lamb (1797), 7 T. R. 129.

“Nearly seven months have passed since the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. That tragic incident provoked widespread demonstrations and stirred strong emotions from those in the Ferguson area and around our nation. It also prompted a federal investigation by the U. S. Department of Justice, with the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division, the U. S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of Missouri and the FBI seeking to determine whether this shooting violated federal civil rights law.”

Eric Holder (1951) 82nd Attorney General of the United States

2010s, Update on Investigations in Ferguson (2015)

Death, Law, Strong

“Scientists and business leaders who care about social justice should join forces with environmental and religious organizations to give political clout to ethics. Science and religion should work together to abolish the gross inequalities that prevail in the modern world. That is my vision, and it is the same vision that inspired Francis Bacon four hundred years ago, when he prayed that through science God would "endow the human family with new mercies."”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

Progress In Religion (2000)

God, World, Family, Religion

“Thus far, gentlemen, I have been insisting very strenuously upon what the most vulgar common sense has every disposition to assent to and only ingenious philosophers have been able to deceive themselves about. But now I come to a category which only a more refined form of common sense is prepared willingly to allow, the category which of the three is the chief burden of Hegel's song, a category toward which the studies of the new logico-mathematicians, Georg Cantor and the like, are steadily pointing, but to which no modern writer of any stripe, unless it be some obscure student like myself, has ever done anything approaching to justice.”

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist

Lecture II : The Universal Categories, §3. Laws: Nominalism, CP 5.59
Pragmatism and Pragmaticism (1903)

Sense, Study

“We must surely learn, from both our past and present history, how careful we must be not to provoke the anger of the native people by doing them wrong, how we should be cautious in our dealings with a foreign people among whom we returned to live, to handle these people with love and respect and, needless to say, with justice and good judgment. And what do our brothers do? Exactly the opposite! They were slaves in their Diasporas, and suddenly they find themselves with unlimited freedom, wild freedom that only a country like Turkey [the Ottoman Empire] can offer. This sudden change has planted despotic tendencies in their hearts, as always happens to former slaves ['eved ki yimlokh – when a slave becomes king – Proverbs 30:22]. They deal with the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, trespass unjustly, beat them shamefully for no sufficient reason, and even boast about their actions. There is no one to stop the flood and put an end to this despicable and dangerous tendency. Our brothers indeed were right when they said that the Arab only respects he who exhibits bravery and courage. But when these people feel that the law is on their rival's side and, even more so, if they are right to think their rival's actions are unjust and oppressive, then, even if they are silent and endlessly reserved, they keep their anger in their hearts. And these people will be revengeful like no other.”

Ahad Ha'am (1856–1927) Hebrew essayist and thinker

Source: Wrestling with Zion, p. 15.

Love, Hostility, People, Law

“Considerations of justice are also integral to efforts to generate transcultural security in the first instance and, ultimately, transcultural synergy.”

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

Source: Sustainable History and the Dignity of Man (2009), p.403

Effort

“There is no justice, and I want you to hear this clearly, when the top one-tenth of 1 percent -- not 1 percent, the top one-tenth of 1 percent -- today in America owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. And in your hearts, you will have to determine the morality of that, and the justice of that.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

2010s, Liberty University Speech (14 September 2015)

Heart, Wealth

“When we had these African bombings of those embassies, we had an intelligence service in there that helped us. We had law enforcement agencies that helped us. We had access. In Libya, you have a government that does not control most of Libya, or a good portion of Libya. And consequently, the ambassador, the State Department, ourselves -- were pushing to get in there at the earliest possible moment. And that ended up being a couple of weeks down the road. But that does not mean that we have not very thoroughly investigated that and are continuing to investigate it. And I do believe the persons responsible will be brought to justice.”

Robert Mueller (1944) Sixth director of the FBI; American attorney

CNN Interview (2013)

Law, Intelligence, Help, Personality

“Quite in vain did several lawyers point out to him that, if justice really existed, there would be no need for law and lawmakers, and thus one of mankind’s noblest conceptions would be obliterated, and an entire occupational group would be thrown out of work. For it is the essence of the law, they told him, that abuses and outrages should exist, since these discrepancies served as proof and validation of the necessity of law, and of justice itself.”

Robert Sheckley book Mindswap

Source: Mindswap (1966), Chapter 6 (pp. 28-29)

Law

“We are testing popular government's capacity for self-defense. We are resolved to liberate the soul of American life and prove ourselves an American people in fact, spirit, and purpose, and consecrate ourselves anew and everlastingly to human freedom and humanity's justice. Realizing our new relationship with the world, we want to make it fit to live in, and with might and fright and wrathfulness and barbarity crushed by the conscience of a real civilization. Ours is a small concern about the kind of government any people may choose, but we do mean to outlaw the nation which violates the sacred compacts of international relationships. The decision is to be final.”

Warren G. Harding (1865–1923) American politician, 29th president of the United States (in office from 1921 to 1923)

1910s, The Republic Must Awaken (1917)

Life, People, World, Soul

“But since he had
The genuis to be loved, why let him have
The justice to be honoured in his grave.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) English poet, author

Crowned and Buried, xxvii reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Love

“For a powerful nation like the United States to continue its insistence upon absolute sovereignty and to refuse to cooperate in creating effective international agencies of justice, is to obstruct the pathway that leads away from international chaos and destruction.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

An American Peace Policy (1925)

“They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest-until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war. For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home. Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom. And for us at home - fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas - whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them - help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1940s, Prayer on D-Day (1944)

Men, God, War, Children

“Gandhi had been right. There was only one way to behave, even if it seemed, in the short term, against one’s self-interest. Surely it was in one’s self-interest in the long term to exhibit generosity, humanity, kindness and a sense of justice to one’s fellow men. It was cynicism of Beesley’s kind which had, after all, led to the threatened extinction of the whole human race. There could be no such thing s a “righteous” war, for war was by its very nature an act of injustice against the individual, but there could be such a thing as an “unrighteous” war—an evil war, a war begun by men who were utterly corrupt, both morally and intellectually. I had begun to think that it was a definition of those who would make war—that whatever motives they claimed, whatever ideals they promoted, whatever “threat” they referred to, they could not be excused—because of their actions they could only be of a degenerate and immoral character.”

Michael Moorcock book The Land Leviathan

Book 2, Chapter 4 “The Triumphant Beast” (p. 262)
The Land Leviathan (1974)

Men, War, Way, Motivation

“I claim that jihadis are really motivated neither by religion nor by a Leftist sense of justice, but by resentment, which in no way puts them on the Left, neither “objectively” nor “subjectively.” I simply never wrote that Islamic fundamentalists are in any sense on the Left—the whole point of my writing on this topic is that the “antagonism” between liberal tolerance and ethnic or religious fundamentalism is inherent to the universe of global capitalism: in their very opposition, they are the two faces of the same system. The true Left starts with the insight into this complicity. A good example of how religious fundamentalism is to be located “in the context of the antagonisms of global capitalism” is Afghanistan. Today, when Afghanistan is portrayed as the utmost Islamic fundamentalist country, who still remembers that, 30 years ago, it was a country with strong secular tradition, up to a strong Communist party which first took power there independently of the Soviet Union? Afghanistan became fundamentalist when it was drawn into global politics”

Slavoj Žižek (1949) Slovene philosopher

first through the Soviet intervention "Disputations: Who Are You Calling Anti-Semitic?" in The New Republic (7 January 2009) http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/disputations-who-are-you-calling-anti-semitic

Religion, Way, Motivation, Sense

“Peace without Justice is a low estate,—
A coward cringing to an iron Fate!
But Peace through Justice is the great ideal,—
We'll pay the price of war to make it real.”

Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat

The Price of Peace (December 28, 1916).

Fate, War, Peace

“Arabs rule but they do not administer. Their government is intensely individualistic, and is successful or unsuccessful according to the degree of fear and respect which the ruler commands, and his skill in dealing with individual men. Founded on an individual life, their government is impermanent and liable to end in chaos at any moment. To Arab tribesmen this system is comprehensible and acceptable, and its success of failure should not be measured in terms of efficiency and justice as judged by Western standards. To these tribesmen security can be bought too dearly by the loss of individual freedom.”

Wilfred Thesiger book Arabian Sands

Source: Arabian Sands (1959), p. 32.

Life, Men, Fear, Failure

“If there be such a principle as justice, or natural law, it is the principle, or law, that tells us what rights were given to every human being at his birth; what rights are, therefore, inherent in him as a human being, necessarily remain with him during life; and, however capable of being trampled upon, are incapable of being blotted out, extinguished, annihilated, or separated or eliminated from his nature as a human being, or deprived of their inherent authority or obligation.

On the other hand, if there be no such principle as justice, or natural law, then every human being came into the world utterly destitute of rights; and coming into the world destitute of rights, he must necessarily forever remain so. For if no one brings any rights with him into the world, clearly no one can ever have any rights of his own, or give any to another. And the consequence would be that mankind could never have any rights; and for them to talk of any such things as their rights, would be to talk of things that never had, never will have, and never can have any existence.”

Lysander Spooner (1808–1887) Anarchist, Entrepreneur, Abolitionist

Section IV, p. 12–13
Natural Law; or The Science of Justice (1882), Chapter II. The Science of Justice (Continued)

Life, World, Law, Birth

“The Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Justice should immediately and without delay get in touch with their counterparts and demand the attendance of the four witnesses. Such demand is covered by the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) which calls not only for Respect for Law but the obligation to make available the US personnel for investigative or judicial proceedings. As worded in Article V, "US military authorities shall, upon formal notification by the Philippine authorities and without delay, make such personnel available to those authorities in time for any investigative or judicial proceedings." The VFA clearly states that the Philippines has criminal jurisdiction over US soldiers involved in a crime in the country, and it is a matter of invoking it with speed and conviction. The VFA, undoubtedly, is one sided and as such we must always insist and be vigilant with what is accorded us as a matter of sovereign right in that treaty. This is incident calls for the Philippine authorities’ and the Filipinos’ righteous indignation to fight for custody of the suspect and demand for the physical availability of the four American witnesses. We cannot just sit idly by and watch while our laws are being subverted. If we cannot defend, protect nor assist our fellow Filipino right here in our own soil, what chilling message do we get out there to our people and especially to those who are outside Philippine soils? We cannot begrudge the US for acting to protect the interests of its nationals and its interests. Our own officials should also, with the same fervor, do the same. This is why I continue my call for the review of the VFA for clearer, stronger and stricter stipulations which are mutually beneficial to both parties in every step of the way.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Escudero, F. [Francis]. (2014, December 16). Retrieved from Official Facebook Page of Francis Escudero https://www.facebook.com/senchizescudero/posts/10152798060815610/ 2014, Facebook

People, Law, Way, Time

“To the mind of superficial men the future of different races has already brought disaster and ruin upon the country. The poor negro has been charged with all our woes. In the haste of these men they forget that our trouble was not ethnological, but moral, that it was not difference of complexion, but difference of conviction. It was not the Ethiopian as a man, but the Ethiopian as a slave and a coveted article of merchandise, that gave us trouble. I close these remarks as I began. If our action shall be in accordance with the principles of justice, liberty, and perfect human equality, no eloquence can adequately portray the greatness and grandeur of the future of the republic. We shall spread the network of our science and our civilization over all who seek their shelter, whether from Asia, Africa, or the isles of the sea. We shall mold them all, each after his kind, into Americans. Indian and Celt, Negro and Saxon, Latin and Teuton, Mongolian and Caucasian, Jew and gentile, all shall here bow to the same law, speak the same language, support the same government, enjoy the same liberty, vibrate with the same national enthusiasm, and seek the same national ends.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

Men, Law, Support, Science