Quotes about justice
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“Let’s speak of justice as present in the world, as independent and self-perpetuating.”

Martin Firrell (1963) British artist and activist

"Complete Hero" (2009)

World

“There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is like a midwife — a tyrannical midwife.”

Stephen Spender (1909–1995) English poet and man of letters

Lecture at Brooklyn College, as quoted in The New York Times (20 November 1984)

“Our mission is at once the oldest and the most basic of this country: to right wrong, to do justice, to serve man.”

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

1960s, The American Promise (1965)

Country

“Let me start a different/ analysis by recalling an idea from Max Weber. He characterized cultural modernity as the separation of the substantive reason expressed in religion and metaphysics into three autonomous spheres. They are science, morality and art. These came to be differentiated because the unified world-views of religion and metaphysics fell apart. Since the 18th century, the problems inherited from these older world-views could be arranged so as to fall under specific aspects of validity: truth, normative rightness, authenticity and beauty. They could then be handled as questions of knowledge, or of justice and morality, or of taste. Scientific discourse, theories of morality, Jurisprudence, and the production and criticism of art could in turn be institutionalized. Each domain of culture could be made to correspond to cultural professions in which problems could be dealt with as the concern of special experts. This professionalized treatment of the cultural tradition brings to the fore the intrinsic structures of each of the three dimensions of culture. There appear the structures of cognitive-instrumental, of moral-practical and of aesthetic-expressive rationality, each of these under the control of specialists who seem more adept at being logical in these particular ways than other people are. As a result, the distance grows between the culture of the experts and that of the larger public. What accrues to culture through specialized treatment and reflection does not immediately and necessarily become the property of everyday praxis. With cultural rationalization of this sort, the threat increases that the life-world, whose traditional substance has already been devalued, will become more and more impoverished.”

Manuel Castells (1942) Spanish sociologist (b.1942)

Source: Modernity — An Incomplete Project, 1983, p. 8-9

Life, People, Truth, World

“Mister Speaker, let us learn a lesson from the dealing of God with the Jewish nation. When his chosen people, led by the pillar of cloud and fire, had crossed the Red Sea and traversed the gloomy wilderness with its thundering Sinai, its bloody battles, disastrous defeats, and glorious victories; when near the end of their perilous pilgrimage they listened to the last words of blessing and warning from their great leader before he was buried with immortal honors by the angel of the Lord; when at last the victorious host, sadly joyful, stood on the banks of the Jordan, their enemies drowned in the sea or slain in the wilderness, they paused and made solemn preparation to pass over and possess the land of promise. By the command of God, given through Moses and enforced by his great successor, the ark of the covenant, containing the tables of the law and the sacred memorials of their pilgrimage, was borne by chosen men two thousand cubits in advance of the people. On the further shore stood Ebal and Gerizim, the mounts of cursing and blessing, from which, in the hearing of all the people, were pronounced the curses of God against injustice and disobedience, and his blessing upon justice and obedience. On the shore, between the mountains and in the midst of the people, a monument was erected, and on it were written the words of the law, 'to be a memorial unto the children of Israel forever and ever.”

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

1860s, Speech in the House of Representatives (1866)

Men, God, Children, People

“Already handbills were in circulation; some presenting, in large print, the alternative of justice on the conspirators or ruin to the Republic; others in equally large print urging the observance of the law and the granting of the Appeal. Round these jutting islets of black capitals there were lakes of smaller characters setting forth arguments less necessary to be read: for it was an opinion entertained at that time (in the first flush of triumph at the discovery of printing), that there was no argument more widely convincing than question-begging phrases in large type.”

George Eliot book Romola

Volume III, Chapter XIII
Romola (1863)

Law, Question, Time, Reading

“John Ashcroft is not a friend of liberty and justice. George Bush, the appointed president, is not someone who ---prior to a month ago--- ever demonstrated any insight or acuity about the world around him. Have these men been born again, again?”

Jeffrey Montgomery (1953–2016) American LGBT rights activist and public relations executive

Commenting on then United States Attorney General John Ashcroft and United States President George W. Bush

Men, World

“The true greatness of a Nation cannot be in triumphs of the intellect alone. Literature and art may widen the sphere of its influence; they may adorn it; but they are in their nature but accessaries. The true grandeur of humanity is in moral elevation, enlightened and decorated by the intellect of man. The truest tokens of this grandeur in a State are the diffusion of the greatest happiness among the greatest number, and that passionless God-like Justice, which controls the relations of the State to other States, and to all the people, who are committed to its charge.”

Charles Sumner (1811–1874) American abolitionist and politician

"True Grandeur of Nations," oration before the authorities of the City of Boston (July 4, 1845)

God, Happiness, People, Art

“And are there no laws of moral health? Can they be outraged and the penalty not paid? Let a man turn out of the bright and bustling Broadway, out of the mad revel of riches and the restless, unripe luxury of ignorant men whom sudden wealth has disordered like exhilarating gas; let him penetrate through sickening stench the lairs of typhus, the dens of small-pox, the coverts of all loathsome disease and unimaginable crimes; let him see the dull, starved, stolid, lowering faces, the human heaps of utter woe, and, like Jefferson in contemplating slavery a hundred years ago in Virginia, he will murmur with bowed head, 'I tremble for this city when I remember that God is just'. Is his justice any surer in a tenement-house than it is in a State? Filth in the city is pestilence. Injustice in the State is civil war. 'Gentlemen', said George Mason, a friend and neighbor of Jefferson's, in the Convention that framed the Constitution, 'by an inscrutable chain of causes and effects Providence punishes national sins by national calamities'. 'Oh no. gentlemen, it is no such thing', replied John Rutledge of South Carolina. 'Religion and humanity have nothing to do with this question. Interest is the governing principle with nations'. The descendants of John Rutledge live in the State which quivers still with the terrible tread of Sherman and his men. Let them answer! Oh seaports and factories, silent and ruined! Oh barns and granaries, heaps of blackened desolation! Oh wasted homes, bleeding hearts, starving mouths! Oh land consumed in the fire your own hands kindled! Was not John Rutledge wrong, was not George Mason right, that prosperity which is only money in the purse, and not justice or fair play, is the most cruel traitor, and will cheat you of your heart's blood in the end?”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1860s, The Good Fight (1865)

Men, Money, God, War

“Everything Lumumba would have done in the Congo, Castro actually accomplished in Cuba: drumhead justice, mass executions, confiscation of industry, collectivization of the land, suspension of civil rights, suspension of democratic processes, alliances with the Iron Curtain. All these became the trade marks of the Castro regime.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

“Today, criminal justice functions and justifies itself only by this perpetual reference to something other than itself, by this unceasing reinscription in non-juridical systems.”

Michel Foucault book Discipline and Punish

Discipline and Punish (1977)

“The universe appears to me like an immense, inexorable torture-garden…Passions, greed, hatred, and lies; social institutions, justice, love, glory, heroism, and religion: these are its monstrous flowers and its hideous instruments of eternal human suffering.”

Octave Mirbeau (1848–1917) French journalist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, novelist, and playwright

Garden of Tortures

Love, Religion, Flowers, Suffering

“But in view of the lessons of the years of contest that have crowned the nation with victory, with the inspirations of liberty and truth brightly lighting the pathway of the people, who can doubt the equity of their voice? The nations of the earth must not be allowed to point at us as pitiful examples of weak selfishness. In the exigencies of this hour, our duty must be so done that the eternal scrolls of justice will ever bear record of the nobility of the nation's heart Animated, inspired, generous, fearless, in the work of liberty and truth, long will the Republic live, a bulwark of God's immutable justice.”

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

1860s, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)

God, People, Truth, Light

“Our party, the oldest in Iraq, was established in 1934. It stands for the rights of working people; for the country's independence; for its development; and of course, in the current situation, we are calling for a change to the s to achieve social justice and real socioeconomic development.”

Raid Jahid Fahmi (1950) Iraqi politician

Interview with Al Jazeera (25 May 2018)

People, Change, Country

“If this is justice, I am a banana.”

Ian Hislop (1960) Satirical comedian, Editor, Television and radio presenter

Statement to the press outside court, following losing a libel action brought by Sonia Sutcliffe, wife of Peter Sutcliffe, the "Yorkshire Ripper", on 24 May 1989, quoted in UPI article http://www.upi.com/Archives/1989/06/05/If-this-is-justice-I-am-a-banana/2768613022400/ and Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rjLTsncFKCgC&pg=PA154

“We may also, I think, congratulate ourselves on the part that the British Empire has played in this struggle, and on the position which it fills at the close. Among the many miscalculations of the enemy was the profound conviction, not only that we had a "contemptible little Army," but that we were a doomed and decadent nation. The trident was to be struck from our palsied grasp, the Empire was to crumble at the first shock; a nation dedicated, as we used to be told, to pleasure-taking and the pursuit of wealth was to be deprived of the place to which it had ceased to have any right, and was to be reduced to the level of a second-class, or perhaps even of a third-class Power. It is not for us in the hour of victory to boast that these predictions have been falsified; but, at least, we may say this—that the British Flag never flew over a more powerful or a more united Empire than now; Britons never had better cause to look the world in the face; never did our voice count for more in the councils of the nations, or in determining the future destinies of mankind. That that voice may be raised in the times that now lie before us in the interests of order and liberty, that that power may be wielded to secure a settlement that shall last, that that Flag may be a token of justice to others as well as of pride to ourselves, is our united hope and prayer.”

George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859–1925) British politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1918/nov/18/the-armistice-address-to-his-majesty in the House of Lords (18 November 1918).

Pleasure, Lie, World, Hope

“Bewdley, as most of you know was in distant times a sanctuary town to which a man, whatever his sins, might flee and be safe from justice. So, whatever the rude waves of the outside world buffet me with more than usual vigour, I have only to remember that in Bewdley, there is sanctuary even for a Prime Minister…I have never failed to find in my own country understanding, sympathy and support, and even when life seems to most difficult and the fences in front unclimbable, I can turn back in memory and recollection to this peaceful spot by the side of the river where I first drew breath and in the memory of which I am able to draw strength. There could have been no more typical English surroundings in which to cherish the earliest memories. I remember as a child, looking up the river from the bridge into that mysterious and romantic land of Shropshire, so close to us, from which my people came only three generations before and watching the smoke of the train running along the little railway through places bearing names like Wyre Forest, Cleobury Mortimer, Neen Sollars and Tenbury - names steeped in romance and redolent of the springtime of an England long ago passed but whose heritage is ours.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Bewdley (8 August 1925), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), pp. 10-11.
1925

Life, People, World, Peace

“We must not be enticed by mathematically attractive assumptions into pretending that the contingencies of men's social positions and the asymmetries of their situations somehow even out in the end. Rather we must choose our conception of justice fully recognizing that this is not and cannot be the case.”

John Rawls book A Theory of Justice

Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter III, Section 28, pg. 171

Men, Mathematics

“It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.”

Mary Wollstonecraft book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Ch. 4

World

“We must ensure we are able to assist women who have been victims of crimes, and help them in securing a life-changing visa so they can safely run away from their abusers and begin a new life without fear, I was pleased to secure state funding for Her Justice that will help the organization support the vital services it provides to at-risk women.”

Jose Peralta (1971–2018) American politician

Life, Women, Fear, Support

“Good afternoon. Yesterday, December the 13th, at around 8:30 p. m. Baghdad time, United States military forces captured Saddam Hussein alive. He was found near a farmhouse outside the city of Tikrit, in a swift raid conducted without casualties. And now the former dictator of Iraq will face the justice he denied to millions.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2003, Remarks on the Capture of Saddam Hussein (December 2003)

Time

“There's lots of law these days, but not much justice. Celebrities murder their wives and go free. A mother kills her children, and the news people on TV say she's the victim and want you to send money to her lawyers. When everything's upside down like this, what fool just sits back and thinks justice will prevail?”

Dean Koontz book One Door Away from Heaven

Geneva Davis; chapter 60, p. 473
One Door Away from Heaven (2001)

Money, Children, People, Law

“What does it mean, then, to become part of God’s work in the world? What does it mean to live a Christian life? One way to answer that question is to look back into the life of the Trinity and the original creation. God made us to ever increasingly share in his own joy and delight in the same way he has joy and delight within himself. We share his joy first as we give him glory (worshipping and serving him rather than ourselves); second, as we honor and serve the dignity of other human beings made in the image of God’s glory; and third, as we cherish his derivative glory in the world of nature, which also reflects it. We glorify and enjoy him only as we worship him, serve the human community, and care for the created environment.
Another way to look at the Christian life, however, is to see it from the perspective of the final restoration. The world and our hearts are broken. Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection was an infinitely costly rescue operation to restore justice to the oppressed and marginalized, physical wholeness to the diseased and dying, community to the isolated and lonely, and spiritual joy and connection to those alienated from God. To be a Christian today is to become part of that same operation, with the expectation of suffering and hardship and the joyful assurance of eventual success.”

Tim Keller (pastor) book The Reason for God

The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (2008), Ch. 14: The Dance of God

Life, Death, God, World

“Here is an empire in which is the only relic of the oldest civilization of the world—one which, 2,700 years ago, according to some authorities, had a system of primary education—which had its system of logic before the time of Aristotle, and its code of morals before that of Socrates. Here is a country which has had its uninterrupted traditions and histories for so long a period—that supplied silks and other articles of luxury to the Romans 2,000 years ago! They are the very soul of commerce in the East, and one of the wealthiest nations in the world. They are the most industrious people in Asia, having acquired the name of the ants of the East…You find them not as barbarians at home, where they cultivate all the arts and sciences, and where they have carried all, except one, to a point of perfection but little below our own—but that one is war. You have there a people who have carried agriculture to a state of horticulture, and whose great cities rival in population those of the Western world. Now, there must be something in such a people deserving of respect. If in speaking of them we stigmatize them as barbarians, and threaten them with force because we say they are inaccessible to reason, it must be because we do not understand them; because their ways are not our ways, nor our ways theirs. Now, is not so venerable an empire as that deserving of some sympathy—at least of some justice—at the hands of conservative England?”

Richard Cobden (1804–1865) English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1857/feb/26/resolutions-moved-debate-adjourned in the House of Commons (26 February 1857) on China. 1850s

War, People, World, Education

“Governments can err, presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that Divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted on different scales. Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.”

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

1930s, Speech to the Democratic National Convention (1936)

Heart, Indifference

“There was no other alternative [to the disappearances]… [Military leaders] were in agreement that it was the price that must be paid to win the war against subversion and we needed that it not be obvious so society would not realize it. It was necessary to eliminate a large group of people who could not be brought to justice nor [openly] shot either.”

Jorge Rafael Videla (1925–2013) Argentinian President

Videla in 2012, as quoted in Adam Bernstein (May 17 2013). "Jorge Rafael Videla, ruthless Argentine junta leader, dies at 87". The Washington Post.

War, People

“I believe that "government", as we know it today, should pull out of most things except for law enforcement and justice, national defense and foreign policy, and let the private sector, a "Grameenized private sector", a social-consciousness-driven private sector, take over their other functions.”

Muhammad Yunus book Banker to the Poor

Autobiography : Banker to the Poor (2001)

Law

“I am certain, however, that those responsible for the murder of millions of Germans will never be brought to justice.”

Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962) German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer

Die Welt memoirs (1999)

“It has been the hope of every patriot that a sense of justice and of respect for the law would work a gradual cure of these flagrant evils. Surely no one supposes that the present can be accepted as a permanent condition. If it is said that these communities must work out this problem for themselves, we have a right to ask whether they are at work upon it. Do they suggest any solution?”

Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901) American politician, 23rd President of the United States (in office from 1889 to 1893)

First State of the Union Address (1889)

Law, Hope, Communication, Problem

“The human race, in its intellectual life, is organized like the bees: the masculine soul is a worker, sexually atrophied, and essentially dedicated to impersonal and universal arts; the feminine is a queen, infinitely fertile, omnipresent in its brooding industry, but passive and abounding in intuitions without method and passions without justice.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress (1905-1906), Vol. II, Reason in Society

Life, Art, Soul, Universe

“The tendency in Africa for nations to become independent and, at the same time, the need to do justice to all, does not only mean being just to the black man of Africa but also being just to the white man of Africa. They are the people, not only in the Union but throughout major portions of Africa, who brought civilisation here, who made possible the present development of black nationalism by bringing the natives education, by showing them the Western way of life, by bringing to Africa industry and development, by inspiring them with the ideals which Western civilisation has developed for itself.”

Hendrik Verwoerd (1901–1966) Prime Minister of South Africa from 1958 until his assassination in 1966

As Prime Minister in Parliament on 3 February 1960, in his impromptu reply to Harold Macmillan’s ‘Wind of Change’ speech, 10 quotes by Hendrik Verwoerd (Politics Web) https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/hendrik-verwoerd-10-quotes-hendrik-verwoerd-politics-web-20-september-2016, sahistory.org.za (20 September 2016)

Life, People, Education, Way

“Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact. To the extent that the proclamation of emancipation is not fulfilled in fact, to that extent we shall have fallen short of assuring freedom to the free.”

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

1960s, Memorial Day speech (1963)

Men, Education, Color, Freedom

“This is not justice; never could this be justice, the verdict was ordained long ago. Its function is not to determine questions such as guilt or innocence, or truth or falsehood. It is a public relations exercise, designed to provide the government with an alibi for posterity. It is a show of wasteful vengeance; a theatrical warning to people of conscience.”

Julian Assange (1971) Australian editor, activist, publisher and journalist

Prosecutor: Manning let secrets into enemy hands= The Oaklahoman, 2013-06-03, 2013-06-04 http://newsok.com/prosecutor-manning-let-secrets-into-enemy-hands/article/feed/549470/?page=2,Regarding the [Bradley Manning] trial.

People, Truth, Exercises, Question

“All impartial men who are moved by justice and not by racialism want India to be ruled by Indians.”

Francisco Luís Gomes (1829–1869) Indo-Portuguese physician, writer, historian, economist, political scientist and MP in the Portuguese parli…

Os Brâmanes. Quoted by Sisir Kumar Das in History of Indian Literature: .1911-1956, struggle for freedom : triumph and tragedy, p. 101
Os Brâmanes (1866)

Men

“Muslim politicians do not recognize secular categories of life as the basis of their politics because to them it means the weakening of the community in its fight against the Hindus. The poor Muslims will not join the poor Hindus to get justice from the rich. Muslim tenants will not join Hindu tenants to prevent the tyranny of the landlord. Muslim labourers will not join Hindu labourers in the fight of labour against the capitalist. Why? The answer is simple. The poor Muslim sees that if he joins in the fight of the poor aginst the rich, he may be fighting against a rich Muslim. The Muslim labourer feels that if he joins in the onslaught of labour against capitalist he will be injuring a Muslim mill-owner. He is conscious that any injury to a rich Muslim, to a Muslim landlord or to a Muslim mill-owner, is a disservice to the Muslim community, for it is thereby weakened in its struggle against the Hindu community.”

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) Father of republic India, champion of human rights, father of India's Constitution, polymath, revolutionary…

Source: Pakistan or The Partition of India (1946), p. 236

Life, Feeling, Communication, Fight

“From the very beginning of hostilities, came into conflict the two ideas which for fifty months were to struggle for the dominion of the world - the idea of sovereign force, which accepts neither control nor check, and the idea of justice, which depends on the sword only to prevent or repress the abuse of strength…the war gradually attained the fullness of its first significance, and became, in the fullest sense of the term, a crusade of humanity for Right; and if anything can console us in part at least, for the losses we have suffered, it is assuredly the thought that our victory is also the victory of Right. This victory is complete, for the enemy only asked for the armistice to escape from an irretrievable military disaster…And in the light of those truths you intend to accomplish your mission. You will, therefore, seek nothing but justice, "justice that has no favourites," justice in territorial problems, justice in financial problems, justice in economic problems. But justice is not inert, it does not submit to injustice. What it demands first, when it has been violated, are restitution and reparation for the peoples and individuals who have been despoiled or maltreated. In formulating this lawful claim, it obeys neither hatred nor an instinctive or thoughtless desire for reprisals. It pursues a twofold object - to render to each his due, and not to encourage crime through leaving it unpunished.”

Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934) 10th President of the French Republic

Welcoming Address http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/parispeaceconf_poincare.htm at the Paris Peace Conference (18 January 1919).

Hostility, War, People, Truth

“The enlargement of Prussian power is little by little becoming a demand of justice.”

Heinrich von Treitschke (1834–1896) Historian, political writer

Statement (1869), quoted in W. W. Coole (ed.), Thus Spake Germany (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1941), p. 39.

“I do not ask the clemency of the court. I came into it to get justice, having failed in this, I demand the full rigors of the law.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

Account of Matilda Joslyn Gage (20 June 1873) to Kansas Leavenworth Times (3 July 1873)
Trial on the charge of illegal voting (1874)

Law

“I've experienced all kinds of discrimination," Oshima says. "Only people who've been discriminated against can really know how much it hurts. Each person feels the pain in his own way, each has his own scars. So I think I'm as concerned about fairness and justice as anybody. But what disgusts me even more are people who have no imagination. The kind T. S. Eliot calls hollow men. People who fill up that lack of imagination with heartless bits of straw, not even aware of what they're doing. Callous people who throw a lot of empty words at you, trying to force you to do what you don't want to. Like that lovely pair we just met." He sighs and twirls the long slender pencil in his hand. "Gays, lesbians, straights, feminists, fascist pigs, communists, Hare Krishnas-none of them bother me. I don't care what banner they raise. But what I can't stand are hollow people. When I'm with them I just can't bear it, and wind up saying things I shouldn't. With those women I should've just let it slide, or else called Miss Saeki and let her handle it. She would have given them a smile and smoothed things over. But I just can't do that. I say things I shouldn't, do things I shouldn't do. I can't control myself. That's one of my weak points.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002), Chapter 19, Oshima

Love, Women, Men, Pain

“"Summon him forth," instructed the Will. "Let justice be meted out. There is much to do, you know, Arthur."
"You'd think we could 'ave a cup of tea and biscuit first," muttered Suzy.”

Garth Nix (1963) Australian fantasy writer

Source: The Keys to the Kingdom series, Mister Monday (2003), p. 392.

Thinking, Tea

“We say an oath that we are a nation of liberty and justice for all, but that’s just words. It’s a civic faith, but I’m one of these people that says before you, "tell me about your religion, first show it to me in how you treat other people." Well, how are we living our civic gospel? How are we living our civic gospel that demands for us to reject the normalcy of injustice, the normalcy of apathy, the normalcy of indifference, and rise to the higher ground of activism, of engagement, of love?”

Cory Booker (1969) 35th Class 2 senator for New Jersey in U.S. Congress

2018

Love, People, Faith, Religion

“If patriotism were defined, not as blind obedience to government, nor as submissive worship to flags and anthems, but rather as love of one's country, one's fellow citizens (all over the world), as loyalty to the principles of justice and democracy, then patriotism would require us to disobey our government, when it violated those principles.”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology (1991): "Obligation to the State" http://www.ecn.cz/temelin/textonly/state_zin.htm

Love, World, Democracy, Loyalty

“The fall of communism confirms century-old libertarian claims that equity and justice cannot be imposed by force, that interpreting "to each according to work" as "to each according to the marginal revenue product of one's labor" rationalizes privilege, and that central planning stifles workers' creative potentials. Clearly, enterprises whose inputs and outputs have been determined by a central planning procedure exclude workers and consumers from decision making, separate conceptual and manual tasks, and offer unequal consumption and work opportunities. For the Soviet, East German, Polish, Czechoslovakian, and Hungarian people to reject these injustices is encouraging. But it is dishonest to say this demonstrates that capitalism is optimal. It only bespeaks a lack of alternatives.”

Robin Hahnel (1946) American economist

Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel. The political economy of participatory economics. Princeton University Press, 1991. p. 3

People, Communication, Optimism, Decision

“In the Cabinet there were large Irish proprietors, and, without imputing to any proprietor a desire of doing injustice to his tenants, it was easy to understand that after the long continuance of the present state of the law in Ireland, proprietors were alarmed at any proposition coming to them like the Bill of the hon. Member for Rochdale. The Irish proprietors in the Cabinet, in that House, and out of it, were afraid of a Bill that would interfere with the powers and privileges that a Parliament of landowners for generations past had been conferring upon the proprietors of the soil. That was the point. The question was, could the cats wisely and judiciously legislate for the mice? He did not believe it. He was as much opposed as any man could be to transferring the land from the landlord to the tenant; but a measure of justice was due from the former to the latter, both in Ireland and in this country as well.”

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

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1852/feb/10/tenant-right-ireland in the House of Commons (10 February 1852). 1850s

Law, Cats, Understanding, Question

“[The Vijayanagar kings allowed] that every man may come and go, and live according to his own creed without suffering any annoyance, and without enquiring whether he is a Christian, Jew, Moor or Heathen. Great equity and justice is observed by all.”

Duarte Barbosa (1480–1545) Portuguese explorer and writer

The Book of Duarte Barbosa, vol. I, p. 202. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 2

Suffering

“Courage will be forthcoming if tile leaders of opinion in all parties will summon out of tile fatigue and confusion of war enough lucidity of mind to understand for themselves and to explain to tile public what is required; and then propose a plan conceived in a spirit of social justice, a plan which uses a time of general sacrifice, not as an excuse for postponing desirable reforms, but as an opportunity for moving further than we have moved hitherto towards reducing in equalities.”

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) British economist

Source: How to Pay for the War (1940), Ch. 1 : The Character of the Problem

War, Courage, Understanding, Time

“I want to say something to the National Union of Students. When you choose to ally yourselves with an organisation like CAGE, which called Jihadi John a “beautiful young man” and told people to “support the jihad” in Iraq and Afghanistan, it really does, in my opinion, shame your organisation and your noble history of campaigning for justice.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

2010s, 2015, Speech on extremism (20 July 2015)

People, Beauty, History, Support

“The Declaration of Independence was a source of inspiration to believe in ideals that transformed us from Jews to Israelis. … I am asking today with deep sorrow: Can we, despite all our achievements, ignore the intolerable gap between what the Declaration of Independence promised and what was fulfilled, the gap between the idea and the realities of Israel? Does the condition of occupation and domination over another people fit the Declaration of Independence? Is there any sense in the independence of one at the expense of the fundamental rights of the other? Can the Jewish people whose history is a record of continued suffering and relentless persecution, allow themselves to be indifferent to the rights and suffering of a neighboring people? Can the State of Israel allow itself an unrealistic dream of an ideological end to the conflict instead of pursuing a pragmatic, humanitarian one based on social justice. I believe that despite all the objective and subjective difficulties, the future of Israel and its position in the family of enlightened nations will depend on our ability to realize the promise of the founding fathers as they canonized it in the Declaration of Independence. I have always believed that there is no military solution to the Jewish Arab conflict, neither from a moral nor a strategic one and since a solution is therefore inevitable I ask myself, why wait?”

Daniel Barenboim (1942) Israeli Argentine-born pianist and conductor

Statement at the Knesset upon receiving the Wolf Prize, May 9, 2004, transcript online https://electronicintifada.net/content/daniel-barenboims-statement-knesset-upon-receiving-wolf-prize-may-9-2004/5080 (16 May 2004) at The Electronic Intifada.

People, Family, Dreams, History

“The new Republican party. Accountability last. If ever. That is the Republican party. Now I am confident we progressives, we liberals, can change this, but it's gonna take a lot of work and we can hustle it along faster: you know the universe does tilt towards justice eventually, but we can make it tilt faster if we continue to work together in Democratic circles, liberal circles, progressive circles, libertarian circles, and true conservative circles to try and change the type of people we elect and the type of news media we have and the type of pundits we allow to pollute our airwaves. Myself included. I shouldn't be a pundit. I don't know why I am, but they asked me to, and once your name is in the rolodex, you're in. So sometimes I go on -yeah I stink. I'm a stinky pundit! …well, compared to the pundits they have I'm fantastic! But in the real world, I stink, and should not be a pundit.”

Janeane Garofalo (1964) comedian, actress, political activist, writer

Majority Report, April 21, 2005 broadcast
Majority Report

People, World, Confidence, Universe

“Peace, freedom and justice are only to be found where people are prepared to defend them.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to the Conservative Party Convention 1982 https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105032 First term as Prime Minister

People, Peace, Freedom

“Grand pappy told my pappy back in my day son
A man had to answer for the wicked that he'd done
Take all the rope in Texas, find a tall oak tree
Round up all of them bad boys, hang them high in the street
For all the people to seeThat justice is the one thing you should always find
You got to saddle up your boys, you got to draw a hard line
When the gun smoke settles, we'll sing a victory tune
And we'll all meet back at the local saloon.
We'll raise up our glasses against Evil forces singing
Whiskey for my men, beer for my horses.”

Toby Keith (1961) American country music singer and actor

Beer for My Horses, written with Scotty Emerick.
Song lyrics, Unleashed (2002)

Men, People, Boy, Beer

“As I see it, the sole motivating factor behind the death penalty is vengeance, not justice, and I firmly believe that a government that forbids killing among its citizens should not be in the business of killing people itself.”

Larry Flynt (1942) American publisher

Larry Flynt: Don't Execute The Man Who Paralyzed Me (Guest Column), 2013-11-21, 2013-10-17, The Hollywood Reporter http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/larry-flynt-dont-execute-man-649158,

Death, People, Penalty, Motivation

“As man lives, and moves, and has his Being in the Divine Nature, and is supported by it, whether his Nature be good or bad; so the Wrath of Man, which was awakened in the dark Fire of his fallen Nature, may, in a certain Sense, be called the Wrath of God, as Hell itself may be said to be in God, because nothing can be out of his Immensity; yet this Hell, is not God, but the dark Habitation of the Devil. And this Wrath which may be called the Wrath of God, is not God, but the fiery Wrath of the fallen Soul.
And it was solely to quench this Wrath, awakened in the human Soul, that the Blood of the Son of God was necessary, because nothing but a Life and a Birth, derived from him into the human Soul, could change this darkened Root of a self-tormenting Fire, into an amiable Image of the holy Trinity, as it was at first created.
This was the Wrath, Vengeance, and vindictive Justice that wanted to be satisfied, in order to our Salvation; it was the Wrath and Fire of Nature and Creature kindled only in itself, by its departing from true Resignation, and Obedience to God.”

William Law (1686–1761) English cleric, nonjuror and theological writer

Christian Regeneration.
The Grounds and Reasons of Christian Regeneration (1739)

Life, God, Soul, Birth

“It is the virtue of God, the Parmatma, the creator to do justice and we as judges merely act as his agents. I always seek guidance from the creator so that we do not make a wrong judgment. We act without favour or fear, ill will or affection. For me it makes no difference.”

Rana Bhagwandas (1942–2015) Pakistani judge

Response when asked about feelings as first Pakistani acting-Chief Justice from a minority community, by Onkar Singh in Indian Rediff News interview (14 February 2006).

God, Fear

“I think that we could agree on what kind of a world we would all want to build. it would be a world of independent nations, moving toward international community, each of which protected and respected the basic human freedoms. It would be a world which demanded of each government that it accept its responsibility to insure social justice. It would be a world of constantly accelerating economic progress — not material welfare as an end in itself, but as a means to liberate the capacity of every human being to pursue his talents and to pursue his hopes. It would, in short, be a world that we would be proud to have built.”

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy

Day of Affirmation Address (1966)

World, Hope, Communication, Thinking

“I think faith in each other is much harder than faith in God or faith in crystals. I very rarely have faith in God; I occasionally have little spasms of it, but they go away, if I think hard enough about it. I am incandescent with rage at the idea of horoscopes and of crystals and of the nonsense of 'New Age', or indeed even more pseudo-scientific things: self-help, and the whole culture of 'searching for answers', when for me, as someone brought up in the unashamed Western tradition of music and poetry and philosophy, all the answers are there in the work that has been done by humanity before us, in literature, in art, in science, in all the marvels that have created this moment now, instead of people looking away. The image to me... is gold does exist, and for 'gold' say 'truth', say 'the answer', say 'love', say 'justice', say anything: it does exist. But the only way in this world you can achieve gold is to be incredibly intelligent about geology, to learn what mankind has learnt, to learn where it might lie, and then break your fingers and blister your skin in digging for it, and then sweat and sweat in a forge, and smelt it. And you will have gold, but you will never have it by closing your eyes and wishing for it. No angel will lean out of the bar of heaven and drop down sheets of gold for you. And we live in a society in which people believe they will. But the real answer, that there is gold, and that all you have to do is try and understand the world enough to get down into the muck of it, and you will have it, you will have truth, you will have justice, you will have understanding, but not by wishing for it.”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

From Radio 4's Bookclub http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00f8l3b 2000s

Love, God, People, Truth

“For a successful revolution, it is not enough that there is enough discontent. What is required is a profound and thorough conviction of justice, necessity and importance of political and social rights.”

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) Father of republic India, champion of human rights, father of India's Constitution, polymath, revolutionary…

Political Science for Civil Services Main Examination (2010)

Success

“The moral faculties are generally esteemed, and with justice, as of higher value than the intellectual powers. But we should always bear in mind that the activity of the mind in vividly recalling past impressions is one of the fundamental though secondary bases of conscience. This fact affords the strongest argument for educating and stimulating in all possible ways the intellectual faculties of every human being.”

Charles Darwin book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

volume II, chapter XXI: "General Summary and Conclusion", page 393 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=410&itemID=F937.2&viewtype=image The Descent of Man (1871)

Education, Way, Past

“It is good to know that our nation's defenses against a conventional attack are impregnable, and an imperative that America remain vigilant against threats from terrorists. But as is the case with a human being, admirable characteristics of a nation are not defined by size and physical prowess. What are some of the other attributes of a superpower? Once again, they might very well mirror those of a person. These would include a demonstrable commitment to truth, justice, peace, freedom, humility, human rights, generosity, and the upholding of other moral values.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Page 199
Post-Presidency, Our Endangered Values (2005)

Truth, Peace, Freedom, Personality

“It is much to be wished that slavery may be abolished. The honour of the States, as well as justice and humanity, in my opinion, loudly call upon them to emancipate these unhappy people. To contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others, involves an inconsistency not to be excused.”

John Jay (1745–1829) American politician and a founding father of the United States

1780s, Letter to R. Lushington (1786)

People

“Since the business of politics is the conciliation of differing interests, justice must not merely be done, but to be seen to be done.”

Bernard Crick (1929–2008) British political theorist and democratic socialist

Source: In Defence Of Politics (Second Edition) – 1981, Chapter 7, In Praise Of Politics, p. 148.

Business

“This shows the kindness of God to His creatures, even to us weak beings. His righteousness and justice as regards all animals are well known; for in the transient world there is among the various kinds of animals no individual being distinguished from the rest of the same species… all physical, psychical, and vital forces and organs that are possessed by one individual are found also in the other individuals. If any one is somehow different it is by accident, in consequence of some exception, and not by a natural property; it is also a rare occurrence.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.12

God, World, Nature, Animals

“The charge of "sentimentalism" is frequently brought against those who plead for animals' rights. Now "sentimentalism," if any meaning at all can be attached to the word, must signify an inequality, an ill balance of sentiment, an inconsistency which leads men into attacking one abuse, while they ignore or condone another where a reform is equally desirable. That this weakness is often observable among "philanthropists" on the one hand, and "friends of animals" on the other, and most of all among those acute "men of the world," whose regard is only for themselves, I am not concerned to deny; what I wish to point out is, that the only real safeguard against sentimentality is to take up a consistent position towards the rights of men and of the lower animals alike, and to cultivate a broad sense of universal justice (not "mercy") for all living things. Herein, and herein alone, is to be sought the true sanity of temperament.”

Henry Stephens Salt (1851–1939) British activist

Source: Animals' Rights, Chapter 1

Men, World, Sense, Universe

“I have observed in foolish awe
The dateless mid-days of the law
And seen indifferent justice done
By everyone on everyone.”

Edwin Muir (1887–1959) British poet, novelist and translator

The Brothers (1983)

Law, Indifference

“Antonio dreams of owning the land he works on, he dreams that his sweat is paid for with justice and truth, he dreams that there is a school to cure ignorance and medicine to scare away death, he dreams of having electricity in his home and that his table is full, he dreams that his country is free and that this is the result of its people governing themselves, and he dreams that he is at peace with himself and with the world. He dreams that he must fight to obtain this dream, he dreams that there must be death in order to gain life. Antonio dreams and then he awakens…. Now he knows what to do and he sees his wife crouching by the fire, hears his son crying. He looks at the sun rising in the East, and, smiling, grabs his machete. The wind picks up, he rises and walks to meet others. Something has told him that his dream is that of many and he goes to find them.”

Subcomandante Marcos (1957) Mexican activist

" Chiapas: The Southeast in Two Winds http://struggle.ws/mexico/ezln/marcos_se_2_wind.html" (August 1992)

Life, Death, People, Truth

“The developing world to which we belong, above all, needs peace, because it is engaged in a historic task – the task of rectifying the imbalances created by colonialism; the task of clearing the debris of departing empires. It is, therefore, necessary to work towards a world order that is democratic and truly multilateral and based upon equity and justice.”

R. Venkataraman (1910–2009) seventh Vice-President of India and the 8th President of India

Source: Commissions and Omissions by Indian Presidents and Their Conflicts with the Prime Ministers Under the Constitution: 1977-2001, P.194.

World, Peace

“Justice, I think, is the tolerable accomodation of the conflicting interests of society, and I don't believe there is any royal road to attain such accomodations concretely.”

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

From The Great Judge by Philip Hamburger (1946).
Extra-judicial writings

Thinking

“Right wrongs no man. If respect is had to majorities, the fact that only one-fifth of the population of the globe is white and the other four-fifths are colored, ought to have some weight and influence in disposing of this and similar questions. It would be a sad reflection upon the laws of nature and upon the idea of justice, to say nothing of a common Creator, if four-fifths of mankind were deprived of the rights of migration to make room for the one-fifth. If the white race may exclude all other races from this continent, it may rightfully do the same in respect to all other lands, islands, capes and continents, and thus have all the world to itself, and thus what would seem to belong to the whole would become the property of only a part. So much for what is right, now let us see what is wise.”

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

1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

World, Sadness, Law, Color

“If you’re born poor, you will die on average nine years earlier than others. If you’re black, you’re treated more harshly by the criminal justice system than if you’re white. If you’re a white, working-class boy, you’re less likely than anybody else to go to university. If you’re at a state school, you’re less likely to reach the top professions than if you’re educated privately. If you’re a woman, you still earn less than a man. If you suffer from mental health problems, there’s too often not enough help to hand. If you’re young, you’ll find it harder than ever before to own your own home. These are all burning injustices, and – as I did with the misuse of stop and search and deaths in police custody and modern slavery – I am determined to fight against them.”

Theresa May (1956) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech declaring bid for the Conservative Party leadership http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-mays-tory-leadership-launch-statement-full-text-a7111026.html (30 June 2016)

Death, Health, Education, School

“The economic illusion is the belief that social justice is bad for economic growth.”

Robert Kuttner (1943) American journalist

Introduction, p. 1 (First text line.)
The Economic Illusion (1984)

“Much less could regeneration, the bringing-on of voluntary repentance and genuine reformation in the soul, be by any sort of efficient causality,—a truth to which modern theology has evidently for some time been alive, as its forward movement is keyed upon the increasing recognition of the metaphor in the name. These thoughts, however incontrovertible they may be, are no doubt staggering thoughts, so much are we of old habituated to calling regeneration the "work" of the Holy Spirit, and to naming man the "creature" of God, and God his "maker." Still, staggering though they be, they must be true if human freedom is to be a fact; and that human freedom is to be a fact, the modern conscience, quickened by the very experience of the Christian spirit itself, firmly declares, having now apprehended that otherwise there is no justice in human responsibility, and then no moral government, but only government edictive and compulsory; and then — no personal God, no true God, at all!”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Harmony of Determinism and Freedom, p.334-5

God, Truth, Soul, Freedom

“Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the 'criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal…[W]e are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, [but] it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings, and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

1992, quoted in [1978-1996: Texas Representative Ron Paul’s Newsletters Contain a Host of Bigoted Claims and Observations, History Commons, http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a7896paulnewsletter#a7896paulnewsletter]
Disputed, Newsletters, Ron Paul Political Report

Men, Thinking, Evil

“When then, my Lords, are all the generous efforts of our ancestors, are all those glorious contentions, by which they meant to secure themselves, and to transmit to their posterity, a known law, a certain rule of living, reduced to this conclusion, that instead of the arbitrary power of a King, we must submit to the arbitrary power of a House of Commons? If this be true, what benefit do we derive from the exchange? Tyranny, my Lords, is detestable in every shape; but in none is it so formidable as where it is assumed and exercised by a number of tyrants. But, my Lords, this is not the fact, this is not the constitution; we have a law of Parliament, we have a code in which every honest man may find it. We have Magna Charta, we have the Statute-book, and we have the Bill of Rights…It is to your ancestors, my Lords, it is to the English barons that we are indebted for the laws and constitution we possess. Their virtues were rude and uncultivated, but they were great and sincere…I think that history has not done justice to their conduct, when they obtained from their Sovereign that great acknowledgment of national rights contained in Magna Charta: they did not confine it to themselves alone, but delivered it as a common blessing to the whole people…A breach has been made in the constitution—the battlements are dismantled—the citadel is open to the first invader—the walls totter—the place is no longer tenable.—What then remains for us but to stand foremost in the breach, to repair it, or to perish in it?…let us consider which we ought to respect most—the representative or the collective body of the people. My Lords, five hundred gentlemen are not ten millions; and, if we must have a contention, let us take care to have the English nation on our side. If this question be given up, the freeholders of England are reduced to a condition baser than the peasantry of Poland…Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it; and this I know, my Lords, that where law ends, there tyranny begins.”

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708–1778) British politician

Speech in the House of Lords on John Wilkes (9 January 1770), quoted in William Pitt, The Speeches of the Right Honourable the Earl of Chatham in the Houses of Lords and Commons: With a Biographical Memoir and Introductions and Explanatory Notes to the Speeches (London: Aylott & Jones, 1848), pp. 90-4.

People, Books, Law, Exercises

“Finally, it should be clear by now that a nation can be no stronger abroad than she is at home. Only an America which practices what it preaches about equal rights and social justice will be respected by those whose choice affects our future. Only an America which has fully educated its citizens is fully capable of tackling the complex problems and perceiving the hidden dangers of the world in which we live. And only an America which is growing and prospering economically can sustain the worldwide defenses of freedom, while demonstrating to all concerned the opportunities of our system and society.”

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

1963, Remarks Prepared for Delivery at the Trade Mart in Dallas

World, Education, Home, Problem

“Since God himself is just and commands justice, the Muslim community (umma) cannot tolerate a tyrannical law or a tyrannical ruler.”

Richard A. Horsley (1939) Biblical scholar

Source: Religion and Empire: People, Power, and the Life of the Spirit (2003), p. 60

God, Law, Communication

“…we have become rich in a variety of acquirements, favoured above measure in the gifts of Providence, unrivalled in commerce, pre-eminent in arts, foremost in the pursuits of philosophy and science, and established in all the blessings of civil society; we are in the possession of peace, of happiness, and of liberty; we are under the guidance of a mild and beneficent religion; and we are protected by impartial laws, and the purest administration of justice: we are living under a system of government which our own happy experience leads us to pronounce the best and wisest which has ever yet been framed; a system which has become the admiration of the world.”

William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806) British politician

Speech in the House of Commons (2 April 1792), reprinted in reprinted in W. S. Hathaway (ed.), The Speeches of William Pitt in the House of Commons. Volume I (London: 1817), p. 394.

Happiness, World, Peace, Religion

“Justice is to social justice like a chair to an electric chair.”

Janusz Korwin-Mikke (1942) polish politician

“Protocols:
Number 11, paras. 1,2
The state Council has been, as it were, the emphatic expression of the ruler; it will be, as the “show” part of the Legislative Corps what may be called the editorial committee of the alws and decrees of the ruler. Br> This, then, is the program of the new constitution. We shall make Law, Right, and Justice (1) in the guide of proposals to the Legislative Corps, (2) by the decrees of the president under the guise of general regulations, of orders of the Senate and of resolutions of the State Council in the guise of ministerial orders, (3) and in case a suitable occasion should arise, in the form of a revolution in the State.”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005)

Law, Parting

“When men hire themselves out to shoot other men to order, asking nothing about the justice of their cause, I don’t care if they are shot themselves.”

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist

"Patriotism", p. 126 http://books.google.com/books?id=zBQRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA126 Facts and Comments (1902)

Men

“Mercy is "Alpha," justice is "Omega."”

Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) English Puritan

Quotes from secondary sources, Smooth Stones Taken From Ancient Brooks, 1860

“Mankind has always argued about justice and injustice, while social scientists and politicians have endlessly discussed the conditions which make justice more or less attainable. These essays discuss a more philosophical issue-what justice is and why it matters. Although their authors were philosophers, few of them were 'professional ' philosophers…”

Alan Ryan (1940) British philosopher

Justice (1993)

“Social movements for global democracy and justice should try not only to build on and create global legal and regulatory institutions, but also to expand possibilities for transnational association and public spheres.”

Iris Marion Young book Inclusion and Democracy

Inclusion and Democracy (2000), Ch. 7: Self-Determination and Global Democracy

Democracy

“What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures.”

Samuel Gompers (1850–1924) American Labor Leader[AFL]

The Shoe workers' journal, Volume 16‎ (1915) p. 4
Variant: What does labor want? We want more school houses and less jails. More books and less guns. More learning and less vice. More leisure and less greed. More justice and less revenge. We want more … opportunities to cultivate our better natures.

Books, Revenge, Nature, Learning

“Revolutions have nowhere ended, and least of all in ROme, without demanding a certain number of victims, who under forms more or less borrowed from justice atone fro the fault of defeat as though it were a crime.”

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

Vol. 3, Pg. 268, Translated by W.P. Dickson
The History of Rome - Volume 3

“We are forced, in equity, to share the government with the working class…If there is a free contract, in open market, between capital and labour, it cannot be right that one of the two contracting parties should have the making of the laws, the management of the conditions, the keeping of the peace, the administration of justice, the distribution of taxes, the control of expenditure, in its own hands exclusively. It is unjust that all these securities, all these advantages, should be on the same side…Before this argument the ancient dogma, that power attends on property, broke down. Justice required that property should-not abdicate, but-share its political supremacy.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Letter to Mary Gladstone (1881)

Peace, Law

“Although I cannot accuse myself of being remarkably unstable, I do not pretend that I have never altered my opinion both in respect to men and things. Indeed, I have been very much modified both in feeling and opinion within the last fourteen years. When I escaped from slavery, and was introduced to the Garrisonians, I adopted very many of their opinions, and defended them just as long as I deemed them true. I was young, had read but little, and naturally took some things on trust. Subsequent experience and reading have led me to examine for myself. This had brought me to other conclusions. When I was a child, I thought and spoke as a child. But the question is not as to what were my opinions fourteen years ago, but what they are now. If I am right now, it really does not matter what I was fourteen years ago. My position now is one of reform, not of revolution. I would act for the abolition of slavery through the Government — not over its ruins. If slaveholders have ruled the American Government for the last fifty years, let the anti-slavery men rule the nation for the next fifty years. If the South has made the Constitution bend to the purposes of slavery, let the North now make that instrument bend to the cause of freedom and justice. If 350,000 slaveholders have, by devoting their energies to that single end, been able to make slavery the vital and animating spirit of the American Confederacy for the last 72 years, now let the freemen of the North, who have the power in their own hands, and who can make the American Government just what they think fit, resolve to blot out for ever the foul and haggard crime, which is the blight and mildew, the curse and the disgrace of the whole United States.”

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

1860s, The Constitution of the United States: Is It Pro-Slavery or Anti-Slavery? (1860)

Men, Feeling, Question, Nature

“When I write I am attempting to do justice to something I have glimpsed about the world.”

Jan Zwicky (1955) Canadian philosopher

Griffin Prize Questionnaire June 2012
Griffin Poetry Prize Questionnaire

World

“The Marxian theory of ideology predicts that the ruling ideas in any well functioning society will be ideas that promote the interests of the ruling class in that society, i. e., the class that is economically dominant. By the “ruling ideas” we should understand Marx to mean the central moral, political and economic ideas that dominate discussion in the mass media and in the corridors of power in that society. The theory is not peculiar to Marx, since the “classical realists” of antiquity like the Sophists and Thucydides advanced essentially the same theory: the powerful clothe their pursuit of self-interest in the garb of morality and justice. When Marx says that, “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas” (The German Ideology) and that, “Law, morality, religion are to [the proletariat] so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests” (The Communist Manifesto), he is simply translating in to Marxian terms the Sophistic view “that the more powerful will always take advantage of the weaker, and will give the name of law and justice to whatever they lay down in their own interests.” (W. K. C. Guthrie, The Sophists”

Brian Leiter (1963) American philosopher and legal scholar

1971), p. 60
"The Hermeneutics of Suspicion: Recovering Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud"

Religion, Law, Idea, Understanding

“It has before been observed that this author is very severe upon most of the popular sports; but in justice to him I may add, that similar complaints have been exhibited against the church-ales and wakes in times greatly anterior to his existence. And, indeed, if we look at the wakes and fairs as they are conducted in the present day, I trust we shall not hesitate to own that they are by no means proper schools for the improvement of the public morals.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 368
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Phillip Stubbes

School, Sport, Time

“I believe that truth and justice are fundamental to an enduring social order.”

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1874–1960) American financier and philanthropist

I Believe

Truth

“We remain dedicated to accomplishing greater social justice through a fairer sharing of wealth and opportunity. We will stay the course, because it is right for Fiji.”

Laisenia Qarase (1941) Prime Minister of Fiji

Excerpts from an address to the Commonwealth Workshop in Nadi, 29 August 2005

Wealth

“The slavery debate has been really a death-struggle from that moment. Mr. Clay thought not. Mr. Clay was a shrewd politician, but the difference between him and Calhoun was the difference between principle and expediency. Calhoun's sharp, incisive genius has engraved his name, narrow but deep, upon our annals. The fluent and facile talents of Clay in a bold, large hand wrote his name in honey upon many pages. But time is already licking it away. Henry Clay was our great compromiser. That was known, and that was the reason why Mr. Buchanan's story of a bargain with J. Q. Adams always clung to Mr. Clay. He had compromised political policies so long that he had forgotten there is such a thing as political principle, which is simply a name for the moral instincts applied to government. He did not see that when Mr. Calhoun said he should return to the Constitution he took the question with him, and shifted the battle-ground from the low, poisonous marsh of compromise, where the soldiers never know whether they are standing on land or water, to the clear, hard height of principle. Mr. Clay had his omnibus at the door to roll us out of the mire. The Whig party was all right and ready to jump in. The Democratic party was all right. The great slavery question was going to be settled forever. The bushel-basket of national peace and plenty and prosperity was to be heaped up and run over. Mr. Pierce came all the way from the granite hills of New Hampshire, where people are supposed to tell the truth, to an- nounce to a happy country that it was at peace — that its bushel-basket was never so overflowingly full before. And then what? Then the bottom fell out. Then the gentlemen in the national rope -walk at Washington found they had been busily twining a rope of sand to hold the country together. They had been trying to compromise the principles of human justice, not the percentage of a tariff; the instincts of human nature and consequently of all permanent government, and the conscience of the country saw it. Compromises are the sheet-anchor of the Union — are they? As the English said of the battle of Bunker Hill, that two such victories would ruin their army, so two such sheet- anchors as the Compromise of 1850 would drag the Union down out of sight forever.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Death, Happiness, People, Truth

“It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it; nay, absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal, such as thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans. These and a variety of other motives, which affect only the mind of the sovereign, often lead him to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people.”

John Jay Federalist Papers

Federalist No. 4 (7 November 1787) Full text from Wikisource http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Federalist/4. 1780s, The Federalist Papers, Federalist No. 4 (1787)

War, People, Family, Motivation