Quotes about justice
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“The Universe is on the side of Justice”
Source: Pedagogy of the Oppressed
“Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.”
“Striving for social justice is the most valuable thing to do in life.”
Misattributed
Source: This appears to originate in April 2014 with an unsourced entry in picturequotes: http://www.picturequotes.com/striving-quotes
Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Albert Einstein / Misattributed
“We fight, we dare, we end our hunger for justice.”
1960s, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)
Context: Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political and economic change. … Now a lot of us are preachers, and all of us have our moral convictions and concerns, and so often have problems with power. There is nothing wrong with power if power is used correctly. You see, what happened is that some of our philosophers got off base. And one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites — polar opposites — so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and power with a denial of love.
It was this misinterpretation that caused Nietzsche, who was a philosopher of the will to power, to reject the Christian concept of love. It was this same misinterpretation which induced Christian theologians to reject the Nietzschean philosophy of the will to power in the name of the Christian idea of love. Now, we've got to get this thing right. What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love. And this is what we must see as we move on. What has happened is that we have had it wrong and confused in our own country, and this has led Negro Americans in the past to seek their goals through power devoid of love and conscience.
This is leading a few extremists today to advocate for Negroes the same destructive and conscienceless power that they have justly abhorred in whites. It is precisely this collision of immoral power with powerless morality which constitutes the major crisis of our times.
"Doubletake", from The Cure at Troy (1990)
Poetry Quotes, The Cure at Troy
Context: History says don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.
“Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land, where justice is a game.”
Song lyrics, Desire (1976), Hurricane
Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002), Chapter 30, Colonel Sanders
Source: The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Stories
Source: Assata: An Autobiography
Source: The Blood of Olympus
“There was no justice, there was only life. And life she had.”
Source: The Women's Room
Source: Humboldt From 'The Gods and Other Lectures'
Source: The Winter King
1960s, I Have A Dream (1963)
Source: I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World
Context: The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
Source: Gilead
“Never pray for justice, because you might get some.”
Source: Cat's Eye
“Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.”
Post-Prime Ministerial
“The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.”
Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter I, Section 3, pg. 12
“I want to be justice, love and the wrath of God all in one.”
Source: Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
Source: A People's History of the United States
"My Credo", a speech to the German League of Human Rights, Berlin (Autumn 1932), as published in Einstein: A Life in Science (1994) by Michael White and John Gribbin, p. 262.
1930s
Source: Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless
2000s, 2009, Farewell speech to the nation (January 2009)
Context: As we address these challenges – and others we cannot foresee tonight – America must maintain our moral clarity. I have often spoken to you about good and evil. This has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise. Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere. Freeing people from oppression and despair is eternally right. This nation must continue to speak out for justice and truth. We must always be willing to act in their defense and to advance the cause of peace.
“Justice limps along, but gets there all the same.”
Source: The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born
“His calls for justice were lost at the mercy of the wind and human indifference.”
Source: Daughter of Fortune
Source: On Peace
"Frank Miller: I Stole From The Best!" COMICDOM interview (22 January 2006), edited by Dimitris Sakaridis http://www.comicdom.gr/interviews.php?id=17&lang=en
Context: My Sin City heroes are knights in dirty, blood-caked armor. They bring justice to a world that gives them no medals, no praise, no reward. That world, that city, often kills them for their brave service.
Source: Second Speech on Conciliation with America (1775)
“Men often mistake killing and revenge for justice. They seldom have the stomach for justice.”
Nynaeve al'Meara
(15 November 1990)
“I am not the law, but I represent justice so far as my feeble powers go.”
1880s, Speech on the Anniversary of Emancipation (1886)
Context: I admit the charge, but deny that nature, race, or color has anything to do with the fact. Any other race, with the same antecedents and the same conditions, would show a similar thieving propensity. The American people have this lesson to learn, that where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property would be safe... While I hold now, as I held years ago, that the South is the natural home of the colored race, and that there must the destiny of that race be mainly worked out, I still believe that means can be and ought to be adopted, to assist in the emigration of such of their number as may wish to change their residence to parts of the country, where their civil and political rights are better protected than at present they can be at the South... The Republican party is not perfect; it is cautious even to the point of timidity; but it is the best friend we have.
“The dead cannot cry out for justice; it is a duty of the living to do so for them.”
Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Diplomatic Immunity (2002)
“War, in its fairest form, implies a perpetual violation of humanity and justice.”
Source: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
“Justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
A phrase used in many notable speeches by King, which is actually a quotation of Amos 5:24 in the Bible.
Misattributed
Variant: Justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
Source: Letter from the Birmingham Jail
“Though it cost the blood of millions of white men, let it come. Let justice be done.”
United Europe Meeting, Albert Hall, London (May 14, 1947). Cited in Churchill by Himself, ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs (2008), p. 26 ISBN 1586486381
Post-war years (1945–1955)
“There could never be innocence in a world without justice.”
Source: Frozen Fire
"Conservation" (c. 1938); Published in Round River, Luna B. Leopold (ed.), Oxford University Press, 1966, p. 155.
1930s
Source: Round River: From the Journals of Aldo Leopold
1960s, (1963)
Source: 1960s, Strength to Love (1963), Ch. 2 : Transformed nonconformist
“The universe did not invent justice. Man did. Unfortunately, man must reside in the universe.”
He Who Shapes (1965)
Source: The Dream Master
“Justice is what love looks like in public.”
Brother West (2009), p. 232
Source: V for Vendetta, Vol. II of X
Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?
Part of an endorsement statement for The Dying of the Trees (1997) by Charles E. Little http://www.ecobooks.com/books/dying.htm.
“It is reasonable that everyone who asks justice should do justice”
No Name in the Street (1972)
Context: Well, if one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected — those, precisely, who need the law's protection most! — and listens to their testimony. Ask any Mexican, any Puerto Rican, any black man, any poor person — ask the wretched how they fare in the halls of justice, and then you will know, not whether or not the country is just, but whether or not it has any love for justice, or any concept of it. It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.
Source: The World As I See It
“I could peel you like a pear and god himself would see the justice in it.”
Source: Red Dragon
“Knowledge which is divorced from justice may be called cunning rather than wisdom.”
Source: Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing