“Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.”

— H.L. Mencken

Source: 1920s, Prejudices, Third Series (1922), Ch. 3

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice." by H.L. Mencken?

H.L. Mencken 281

American journalist and writer 1880–1956

Related quotes

“First, then, God, being all-just, wishes to do justice; being all-wise, knows what justice is; being all-powerful, can do justice. Why then injustice?”

Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) American anarchist writer and feminist

The Economic Tendency of Freethought (1890)
Context: First, then, God, being all-just, wishes to do justice; being all-wise, knows what justice is; being all-powerful, can do justice. Why then injustice? Either your God can do justice and won't or doesn't know what justice is, or he cannot do it. The immediate reply is: "What appears to be injustice in our eyes, in the sight of omniscience may be justice. God's ways are not our ways."
Oh, but if he is the all-wise pattern, they should be; what is good enough for God ought to be good enough for man; but what is too mean for man won't do in a God.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

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

1960s, The Rising Tide of Racial Consciousnes (1960)
Context: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Therefore, no American can afford to be apathetic about the problem of racial justice. It is a problem that meets every man at his front door.

“I forgive the injustice carried out in the name of justice,”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Aleph (2011)

“The love of justice is simply in the majority of men the fear of suffering injustice.”

François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

L'amour de la justice n'est en la plupart des hommes que la crainte de souffrir l'injustice.
Maxim 78.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

“Injustice…is a mother who is never barren, and bears children worthy of her.”

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804–1869) French literary critic

L'injustice…est une mère qui n'est jamais sterile, et qui produit des enfants dignes d'elle.
Causeries du lundi (Paris: Garnier, 1857) vol. 1, p. 148; E. J. Trechmann (trans.) Causeries du Lundi (London: George Routledge, 1909) vol. 1, p. 117.
Sainte-Beuve was here merely reporting words spoken by Adolphe Thiers, but many French quotation websites (e.g. Dico-Citations http://www.dico-citations.com/l-injustice-est-une-m-re-qui-n-est-jamais-st-rile-et-qui-produit-des-enfants-dignes-d-elle-sainte-beuve-charles-augustin/) attribute them to Sainte-Beuve himself.
Misattributed