Quotes about justice
page 17

Isaac Asimov photo

“Plowboy: In your opinion, what are mankind's prospects for the near future?
Asimov: To tell the truth, I don't think the odds are very good that we can solve our immediate problems. I think the chances that civilization will survive more than another 30 years—that it will still be flourishing in 2010—are less than 50 percent.
Plowboy: What sort of disaster do you foresee?
Asimov: I imagine that as population continues to increase—and as the available resources decrease—there will be less energy and food, so we'll all enter a stage of scrounging. The average person's only concerns will be where he or she can get the next meal, the next cigarette, the next means of transportation. In such a universal scramble, the Earth will be just plain desolated, because everyone will be striving merely to survive regardless of the cost to the environment. Put it this way: If I have to choose between saving myself and saving a tree, I'm going to choose me.
Terrorism will also become a way of life in a world marked by severe shortages. Finally, some government will be bound to decide that the only way to get what its people need is to destroy another nation and take its goods … by pushing the nuclear button.
And this absolute chaos is going to develop—even if nobody wants nuclear war and even if everybody sincerely wants peace and social justice—if the number of mouths to feed continues to grow. Nothing will be able to stand up against the pressure of the whole of humankind simply trying to stay alive!”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Mother Earth News interview (1980)

Frank Bainimarama photo

“Remember the words of the Bible in Amos 5:24, 'Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-falling stream'.”

Frank Bainimarama (1954) Prime Minister of Fiji

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

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“The social action approach, assumes there is a disadvantaged (often oppressed) segment of the population that needs to be organized, perhaps in alliance with others, in order to pressure the power structure for increased resources or for treatment more in accordance with democracy or social justice.”

Charles Zastrow (1942) American sociologist

Source: The practice of social work. (1995), p. 315; partly cited in: Lupe Alle-Corliss, ‎Randy Alle-Corliss (1999) Advanced practice in human service agencies. p. 233

Samuel Adams photo
Adam Smith photo
Jeffrey Tucker photo
Larry Hogan photo
Alan M. Dershowitz photo

“Judges are the weakest link in our system of justice and they are also the most protected.”

Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) American lawyer, author

Newsweek, 1978-02-20

Dan Mathews photo
Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“By the oath I have taken "to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," duty directs — and strong personal conviction impels — that I advise the Congress that action is necessary, and necessary now, if the Constitution is to be upheld and the rights of all citizens are not to be mocked, abused and denied. I must regretfully report to the Congress the following facts:
1. That the Fifteenth Amendment of our Constitution is today being systematically and willfully circumvented in certain State and local jurisdictions of our Nation.
2. That representatives of such State and local governments acting "under the color of law," are denying American citizens the right to vote on the sole basis of race or color.
3. That, as a result of these practices, in some areas of our country today no significant number of American citizens of the Negro race can be registered to vote except upon the intervention and order of a Federal Court.
4. That the remedies available under law to citizens thus denied their Constitutional rights — and the authority presently available to the Federal Government to act in their behalf — are clearly inadequate.
5. That the denial of these rights and the frustration of efforts to obtain meaningful relief from such denial without undue delay is contributing to the creation of conditions which are both inimical to our domestic order and tranquillity and incompatible with the standards of equal justice and individual dignity on which our society stands.
I am, therefore, calling upon the Congress to discharge the duty authorized in Section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment "to enforce this Article by appropriate legislation."”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Special message to Congress on the right to vote (1965)

Roderick Long photo
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel photo
Sir Francis Buller, 1st Baronet photo
Claude Adrien Helvétius photo
Eric Holder photo
William Makepeace Thackeray photo
Charles Bowen photo
Roberto Mangabeira Unger photo

“Obama shared in the more philosophical part of the discussion as vigorously as he did in the more context-oriented part …. The impression you report, of impatience with speculative exploration, is false. It does justice neither to him nor to me to represent these conversations under the lens of philistine activist against starry-eyed theoretician. He was always interested in ideas, big and small.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger (1947) Brazilian philosopher and politician

Quoted in David Remnick, The Bridgeː The Life and Rise of Barack Obama (2010), p. 185 (explaining the nature of Obama's participation in the two seminars that Obama took with Unger while studying at Harvard Law School)
On Barack Obama

Alberto Gonzales photo
Joseph Strutt photo
George S. Patton photo

“Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish Thy justice among men and nations.”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

Though Patton commissioned this prayer and ordered 250,000 copies of it printed with his signature, it was actually composed by Chief Chaplain James H. O'Neill http://www.pattonhq.com/prayer.html Review of the News (6 October 1971)
Misattributed

George Mason photo
Jozef Israëls photo

“The title [of an album with prints of Israels and poems after his pictures, made by Nicolaas Beets ] will not be I hope 'Kroost der zee' ['Offspring of the Sea']. I think this is an insufferable dissonance. Call it 'Sketches from Fisher's life - of B to J.' I think that is the best, the simplest and the most attractive name. Also the word 'to' gives me justice, otherwise people will think that I made them [his pictures] after Beets and not Beets [his poems] after me.”

Jozef Israëls (1824–1911) Dutch painter

translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch (citaat van Jozef Israëls in Nederlands): De titel [van een album met prenten van Israels en gedichten daarop van nl:Nicolaas Beets ] zal toch hoop ik niet zijn, 'Kroost der zee'.- zulks vind ik van een onuitstaanbare wanklank laat het heeten 'schetsen uit het visschersleven van B naar J. ' dat vind ik de beste eenvoudigste en meest aantrekkelijke naam. Tevens het woordje 'naar' doet mij regt, daar anders men meenen zoude dat ik ze naar Beets en niet Beets naar mij gemaakt heeft.
Quote in his letter to publisher A.C. Kruseman in The Hague, 1861; as cited in LTK 1390 nr. 11, University Library of Leiden
the compromise between Beets and Israëls became 'The Children of the Sea'; the album was published in four episodes, the first on 7 June, 1861
Quotes of Jozef Israels, 1840 - 1870

Coretta Scott King photo
Khushwant Singh photo

“… Lewis will be remembered most for his unfailing commitment to justice as a concept that must rise above politics. For it is the Constitution, not any party, ideology or official, that merits Americans' constant allegiance.”

Anthony Lewis (1927–2013) American journalist

[Star Tribune staff, December 21, 2001, Star Tribune: Newspaper of the Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Lewis and the law - Powerful writing rooted in respect, 32A]
About

Frederick Douglass photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“This right of free choice is no special privilege claimed by the Germans alone. It is an elemental requirement of human justice.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Address at the Free University of Berlin

Thomas Henry Huxley photo
Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman photo
John Bright photo

“You say the right hon. baronet [Peel] is a traitor. It would ill become me to attempt his defence after the speech which he delivered last night—a speech, I will venture to say, more powerful and more to be admired than any speech which has been delivered within the memory of any man in this House. I watched the right hon. baronet as he went home last night, and for the first time I envied him his feelings. That speech was circulated by scores of thousands throughout the kingdom and throughout the world; and wherever a man is to be found who loves justice, and wherever there is a labourer whom you have trampled under foot, that speech will bring joy to the heart of the one, and hope to the breast of the other. You chose the right hon. baronet—why? Because he was the ablest man of your party. You always said so, and you will not deny it now. Why was he the ablest? Because he had great experience, profound attainments, and an honest regard for the good of the country. You placed him in office. When a man is in office he is not the same man as when in opposition. The present generation, or posterity, does not deal as mildly with men in government as with those in opposition. There are such things as the responsibilities of office. Look at the population of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and there is not a man among you who would have the valour to take office and raise the standard of Protection, and cry, "Down with the Anti-Corn Law League, and Protection for ever!" There is not a man in your ranks who would dare to sit on that bench as the Prime Minister of England pledged to maintain the existing law. The right hon. baronet took the only, the truest course—he resigned. He told you by that act: "I will no longer do your work. I will not defend your cause. The experience I have had since I came into office renders it impossible for me at once to maintain office and the Corn Laws."”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

The right hon. baronet resigned—he was then no longer your Minister. He came back to office as the Minister of his Sovereign and of the people.
Speech in the House of Commons (17 February 1846), quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), p. 148.
1840s

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Samuel Adams photo
Daniel Hannan photo
Andrew P. Napolitano photo

“Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command. He didn’t use the NSA. He didn’t use the CIA. He didn’t use the FBI and he didn’t use the Department of Justice. He used GCHQ. What the heck is GCHQ? That’s the initials for the British spying agency. They have 24-7 access to the NSA database.”

Andrew P. Napolitano (1950) American judge and syndicated columnist

Fox & Friends interview, March 14, 2017
[The battle within Fox News, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2017/03/17/the-battle-within-fox-news, Wemple, Eric, March 17, 2017, The Washington Post] "Though Napolitano may have presented his research on a show that Fox News considers commentary or opinion, he was debuting news reporting."
[Judge Andrew Napolitano, Brian Kilmeade, 2017, Judge Nap: Obama 'Went Outside Chain of Command,' Used British Spy Agency to Surveil Trump, http://video.insider.foxnews.com/v/video-embed.html?video_id=5358700250001, video, Fox News Network] (quoted text at 01:16)

Francis Escudero photo
Freeman Dyson photo
Rab Butler photo
Archibald Cox photo
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon photo

“It was said by a very learned Judge, Lord Macclesfield, towards the beginning of this century that the most effectual way of removing land marks would be by innovating on the rules of evidence; and so I say. I have been in this profession more than forty years, and have practised both in Courts of law and equity; and if it had fallen to my lot to form a system of jurisprudence, whether or not I should have thought it advisable to establish two different Courts with different jurisdictions, and governed by different rules, it is not necessary to say. But, influenced as I am by certain prejudices that have become inveterate with those who comply with the systems they found established, I find that in these Courts proceeding by different rules a certain combined system of jurisprudence has been framed most beneficial to the people of this country, and which I hope I may be indulged in supposing has never yet been equalled in any other country on earth. Our Courts of law only consider legal rights: our Courts of equity have other rules, by which they sometimes supersede those legal rules, and in so doing they act most beneficially for the subject. We all know that, if the Courts of law were to take into their consideration all the jurisdiction belonging to Courts of equity, many bad consequences would ensue. To mention only the single instance of legacies being left to women who may have married inadvertently: if a Court of law could entertain an action for a legacy, the husband would recover it, and the wife might be left destitute: but if it be necessary in such a case to go into equity, that Court will not suffer the husband alone to reap the fruits of the legacy given to the wife; for one of its rules is that he who asks equity must do equity, and in such a case they will compel the husband to make a provision for the wife before they will suffer him to get the money. I exemplify the propriety of keeping the jurisdictions and rules of the different Courts distinct by one out of a multitude of cases that might be adduced.... One of the rules of a Court of equity is that they cannot decree against the oath of the party himself on the evidence of one witness alone without other circumstances: but when the point is doubtful, they send it to be tried at law, directing that the answer of the party shall be read on the trial; so they may order that a party shall not set up a legal term on the trial, or that the plaintiff himself shall be examined; and when the issue comes from a Court of equity with any of these directions the Courts of law comply with the terms on which it is so directed to be tried. By these means the ends of justice are attained, without making any of the stubborn rules of law stoop to what is supposed to be the substantial justice of each particular case; and it is wiser so to act than to leave it to the Judges of the law to relax from those certain and established rules by which they are sworn to decide.”

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

Bauerman v. Eadenius (1798), 7 T. R. 667.

Nick Cave photo
William Ewart Gladstone photo

“That reform of the land laws, that abolition of the present system of entail, together with just facilities for the transfer of land, is absolutely necessary in order to do anything like common justice to those who inhabit the rural parts of this country, and whom, instead of seeing them, as we now see them, dwindle from one census to another, I, for my part, and I believe you, along with me, would heartily desire to see maintained, not in their present number only, but in increasing numbers over the whole surface of the land.”

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

Speech in Newcastle (2 October 1891), quoted in A. W. Hutton and H. J. Cohen (eds.), The Speeches of The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone on Home Rule, Criminal Law, Welsh and Irish Nationality, National Debt and the Queen's Reign. 1888–1891 (London: Methuen, 1902), p. 386.
1890s

Walter Rauschenbusch photo
Henry Bickersteth, 1st Baron Langdale photo

“The Court must not depart from those rules which have been considered necessary for the due administration of justice.”

Henry Bickersteth, 1st Baron Langdale (1783–1851) British lawyer

Symonds v. The Gas Light and Coke Co. (1848), 11 Beav. 285.
Quote

“The history of the Democratic Party can be concisely captured by referring to its steadfast allegiance to the four Ss. Slavery, Secession, Segregation, and Socialism. During the Obama presidency we have seen how hard old habits die, even for a black man whose race was the long-time victim of Democratic Party's bone-deep authoritarianism. Under this Democratic president we have seen a war waged on several fronts against America's young. Indeed, the Democrats' historic taste for and belief in slavery have resurfaced with a vengeance and indiscriminately under the Obama administration, whether white, black, yellow, red, male, or female America's young are dying and being forced to work for Obama and his lieutenants as they seek to maintain their party's hold on political power. How so? Well, America has never had a president and administration so eager to kill unborn Americans. Even with post-1973 science having proved irrefutably that the unborn are human beings, and even though American law always has defined them as U. S. citizens, Obama and his colleagues have strengthened at every point they could the absurd notion that unborn humans are the chattel property of the woman who bears them, and so can be disposed of, that is, murdered, at her whim. And, in what must be considered a masterpiece of Orwellian language, Obama and his team, and most Democrats since 1973, describe this federal government-issued license to kill as a woman's 'right', a means by which she manifests her equality with men. They then damn any one who questions the logic, sanity, or justice of this argument as an 'extremist'. Only in an America in which a political entity as devoted to the four 'Ss' as the Democratic Party could opposition to the cold-blooded murder of fellow citizens unable defend themselves be identified by the country’s best-educated as 'extremism'. If this is indeed a right, it is a right gives each woman the right to be a slave-owner and a Nazi. Such a 'right' really is no different than the rights sanctioned by the Dred Scott decision and the Nuremberg laws, each of which legally defined certain categories of people out of the human race in order to enslave or kill them. Since 1973, the application of this 'right' has produced precisely the same results as Dred Scott and the Nuremberg laws, though in numbers so immense, 55 million and climbing, that they make those acts seem rather tame and minimally destructive of humans.”

Michael Scheuer (1952) American counterterrorism analyst

As quoted in "Obama and his party offer America's young … death, misery, and slavery" http://non-intervention.com/1143/obama-and-his-party-offer-america%E2%80%99s-young-%E2%80%A6-death-misery-and-slavery/ (21 November 2013), by M. Scheuer, Michael Scheuer's Non-Intervention.
2010s

Bernard Cornwell photo

“It ain't justice, Richard, but politics, and like all politics it ain't pretty, but well done it can work wonders.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Major Michael Hogan, p. 172
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Battle (1995)

“It's justice that He's bringing.
It's hidden inside a song.
No one's stuck in the middle…
the battle is already won.”

Ysabella Brave (1979) American singer

"Beautiful" (08 June 2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS-F2ZYGty8

Nayef Al-Rodhan photo
Muhammad of Ghor photo

“Such was the man who was sent on an embassy to Ajmir, in order that the Rai (Pithaura) of that country might see the right way without the intervention of the sword, and that he might incline from the track of opposition into the path of propriety, leaving his airy follies for the institutes of the knowledge of Allah, and acknowledging the expediency of uttering the words of martyrdom and repeating the precepts of the law, and might abstain from infidelity and darkness, which entails the loss of this world and that to come, and might place in his ear the ring of slavery to the sublime Court (may Allah exalt it!) which is the centre of justice and mercy, and the pivot of the Sultans of the worldand by these means and modes might cleanse the fords of good life from the sins of impurity'…'The army of Islam was completely victorious, and 'an hundred thousand grovelling Hindus swiftly departed to the fire of hell'… After this great victory, the army of Islam marched forward to Ajmir, where it arrived at a fortunate moment and under an auspicious bird, and obtained so much booty and wealth, that you might have said that the secret depositories of the seas and hills had been revealed….'While the Sultan remained at Ajmir, he destroyed the pillars and foundations of the idol temples, and built in their stead mosques and colleges, and the precepts of Islam, and the customs of the law were divulged and established”

Muhammad of Ghor (1160–1206) Ghurid Sultan

About the conquest of Ajmer (Rajasthan) Hasan Nizami: Taju’l-Ma’sir, in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 213-216. Also quoted (in part) in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.

David Hume photo
Abd al-Karim Qasim photo
Chuck Grassley photo
George Mason photo
Mitt Romney photo

“We believe in a nation under God, a nation indivisible, a nation united, a nation with justice and liberty for all. And for that to happen, we're going to have to have a new president that will commit to getting America working again; that will commit to a strong military; that will commit to a nation under God that recognizes that we the American people were given our rights not by government, but by God himself.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

campaign speech at Military Aviation Museum, Virginia Beach, , quoted in [2012-09-08, Ashley, Parker, In Romney’s Hands, Pledge of Allegiance Is Framework for Criticism, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/us/politics/romney-uses-pledge-of-allegiance-to-criticize-obama.html, 2012-09-18]
quoting and paraphrasing the Pledge of Allegiance
regarding a draft of the Democratic Party's national platform replacing the phrase "God-given potential" with "talent and drive"
2012

Robert A. Heinlein photo
Algis Budrys photo

“Does it not seem to you, Justice Joyce, that this series of statistics might well occur without the intervention of any Divine Will whatsoever?”

Algis Budrys (1931–2008) American writer

The Executioner, p. 136
The Unexpected Dimension (1960)

Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“So it is in that spirit that I declare this afternoon to the people of Cuba that those who seek refuge here in America will find it. The dedication of America to our traditions as an asylum for the oppressed is going to be upheld. I have directed the Departments of State and Justice and Health, Education, and Welfare to immediately make all the necessary arrangements to permit those in Cuba who seek freedom to make an orderly entry into the United States of America. Our first concern will be with those Cubans who have been separated from their children and their parents and their husbands and their wives and that are now in this country. Our next concern is with those who are imprisoned for political reasons. And I will send to the Congress tomorrow a request for supplementary funds of $12,600,000 to carry forth the commitment that I am making today. I am asking the Department of State to seek through the Swiss government immediately the agreement of the Cuban government in a request to the President of the International Red Cross Committee. The request is for the assistance of the Committee in processing the movement of refugees from Cuba to Miami. Miami will serve as a port of entry and a temporary stopping place for refugees as they settle in other parts of this country. And to all the voluntary agencies in the United States, I appeal for their continuation and expansion of their magnificent work. Their help is needed in the reception and the settlement of those who choose to leave Cuba. The Federal Government will work closely with these agencies in their tasks of charity and brotherhood. I want all the people of this great land of ours to know of the really enormous contribution which the compassionate citizens of Florida have made to humanity and to decency. And all States in this Union can join with Florida now in extending the hand of helpfulness and humanity to our Cuban brothers. The lesson of our times is sharp and clear in this movement of people from one land to another. Once again, it stamps the mark of failure on a regime when many of its citizens voluntarily choose to leave the land of their birth for a more hopeful home in America. The future holds little hope for any government where the present holds no hope for the people. And so we Americans will welcome these Cuban people. For the tides of history run strong, and in another day they can return to their homeland to find it cleansed of terror and free from fear. Over my shoulders here you can see Ellis Island, whose vacant corridors echo today the joyous sound of long ago voices. And today we can all believe that the lamp of this grand old lady is brighter today; and the golden door that she guards gleams more brilliantly in the light of an increased liberty for the people from all the countries of the globe. Thank you very much.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Remarks at the signing of the Immigration Bill (1965)

Jay Leiderman photo
Bart D. Ehrman photo
Hans Ruesch photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Rousas John Rushdoony photo

“The Bible declares blasphemy to be a very serious offense, because any society which begins by profaning God and His authority will soon profane all things. Nothing will be sacred. No authority will stand. The alternative to authority is total terror by the power of State. This is why, as I’ve pointed out more than once, when the authority of God is destroyed, and when the doctrine of Creation was replaced with the doctrine of Evolution, Marx and Engels congratulated one another in that now their position was established. The foundations of all godly authority were shattered when God was no longer viewed as the creator. His Law, His Word, His person became thereby irrelevant to creation. If the Lord God of scripture did not make the Heavens and the earth and all things therein to the last atom, His Word does not govern creation. If Creation is a product of Evolution, then no law outside of itself can govern it. So the alternative to the authority of God is total terror by the power of State. Where there is no authority, there is soon no justice, because men then no longer speak the same moral languages of law and authority. The respect for God’s authority establishes communication and healthy dissent, the kind of dissent which thrives in an anarchist situation is the dissent of increasing evil, violence and destruction. Godly dissent is constructive, not destructive, and its goal is justice and holiness.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Audio lectures, Blasphemy (n. d.)

Max Stirner photo
Henri-Frédéric Amiel photo

“Liberty, equality — bad principles! The only true principle for humanity is justice; and justice to the feeble becomes necessarily protection or kindness.”

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881) Swiss philosopher and poet

Undated entry of December 1863 or early 1864, as translated by Humphry Ward (1893), p. 215
Journal Intime (1882), Journal entries

Frederick Douglass photo
Bryant Gumbel photo

“The circumstances of justice may be described as the normal conditions under which human cooperation is both possible and necessary.”

Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter III, Section 22, pg. 126

African Spir photo

“The realization of justice is, in the actual state of things, a matter of life or death for society and for civilisation itself.”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 55.

Frederick Douglass photo

“For the first time in the history of our people, and in the history of the whole American people, we join in this high worship, and march conspicuously in the line of this time-honored custom. First things are always interesting, and this is one of our first things. It is the first time that, in this form and manner, we have sought to do honor to an American great man, however deserving and illustrious. I commend the fact to notice; let it be told in every part of the republic; let men of all parties and opinions hear it; let those who despise us, not less than those who respect us, know that now and here, in the spirit of liberty, loyalty, and gratitude, let it be known everywhere, and by everybody who takes an interest in human progress and in the amelioration of the condition of mankind, that, in the presence and with the approval of the members of the American House of Representatives, reflecting the general sentiment of the country; that in the presence of that august body, the American Senate, representing the highest intelligence and the calmest judgment of the country; in the presence of the Supreme Court and Chief-Justice of the United States, to whose decisions we all patriotically bow; in the presence and under the steady eye of the honored and trusted President of the United States, with the members of his wise and patriotic Cabinet, we, the colored people, newly emancipated and rejoicing in our blood-bought freedom, near the close of the first century in the life of this republic, have now and here unveiled, set apart, and dedicated a monument of enduring granite and bronze, in every line, feature, and figure of which the men of this generation may read, and those of aftercoming generations may read, something of the exalted character and great works of Abraham Lincoln, the first martyr President of the United States.”

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

1870s, Oratory in Memory of Abraham Lincoln (1876)

Herbert Marcuse photo
Nathanael Greene photo
John Gray photo
William Jennings Bryan photo
Lyndon B. Johnson photo
Frederick Douglass photo
George William Curtis photo

“The part assigned to this country in the 'Good Fight of Man' is the total overthrow of the spirit of caste. Luther fought it in the form of ecclesiastical despotism; our fathers fought it as political tyranny; we have hitherto encountered it entrenched in a system of personal slavery. But in all these forms it is the same old spirit of the denial of equal rights. Martin Luther, the monk, had exactly the same right to his religious faith that Giovanni de' Medici, the pope, had to his. Galileo had the same right to hold and teach his scientific theories that the Church doctors had to teach theirs. Patrick Henry, a British subject, had the same right to refuse to be taxed without representation that Lord North, another British subject, had. Robert Small, one of the American people, had exactly the same right to vote upon the same qualifications with other citizens that the President has or the Chief Justice of the United States. The Inquisition in Italy, aristocratic privilege in England, chattel slavery or unfair political exclusion in the United States, are only fruits ripened upon the tree of caste. Our swords have cut off some of the fruit, but the tree and its roots remain, and now that our swords are turned into plough-shares and our Dahlgrens and Parrotts into axes and hoes, our business is to take care that the tree and all its roots are thoroughly cut down and dug up, and burned utterly away in the great blaze of equal rights.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1860s, The Good Fight (1865)

Ali Khamenei photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“We are not wrong, we are not wrong in what we are doing. If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. And if we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong. If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to Earth. If we are wrong, justice is a lie, love has no meaning. And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until "justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream."”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Address to the first Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) Mass Meeting, at Holt Street Baptist Church (5 December 1955) http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/mia_mass_meeting_at_holt_street_baptist_church/. "Justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream" is a quotation of Amos 5:24 in the Bible.
1950s

Koila Nailatikau photo

“If we succumb to pardoning these men, then we are sabotaging and undermining our own ability to act without fear or favour. We reap what we sow. We will sow a culture of coups for our children. We must therefore, uphold the Rule of Law and Justice.”

Koila Nailatikau (1953) Fijian politician

On her boycott of the "Fiji Week" reconciliation ceremonies, Senate Speech, 22 October 2004 (excerpts) http://www.parliament.gov.fj/hansard/viewhansard.aspx?hansardID266&viewtypefull

Harry V. Jaffa photo
Raymond Chandler photo
Learned Hand photo
Cesar Chavez photo
Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse photo
Dio Chrysostom photo
Edwin Abbott Abbott photo
Francis Parkman photo
Rosa Luxemburg photo
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Friedrich Hayek photo

“Justice, like liberty and coercion, is a concept which, for the sake of clarity, ought to be confined to the deliberate treatment of men by other men.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

Source: 1960s–1970s, The Constitution of Liberty (1960), p. 99.

Ai Weiwei photo