“Every human institution (Justice included) will stretch a little, if you only pull it the right way.”

— Wilkie Collins, book The Moonstone

[Street, 1868] ( p. 50 https://books.google.com/books?id=sAqXBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA50) <br class="br">Also in Plots of Opportunity: Representing Conspiracy in Victorian England by Albert D. Pionke [Ohio State University Press, 2004, 0-814-20948-3] ( p. 98 https://books.google.com/books?id=OH6ml-qUK7sC&pg=PA98) <br class="br">The Moonstone (1868)

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 "Every human institution (Justice included) will stretch a little, if you only pull it the right way." by Wilkie Collins?

Wilkie Collins photo

Wilkie Collins36

British writer 1824–1889

Related quotes

“We are beckoned to see the world through a one-way mirror, as if we are threatened and innocent and the rest of humanity is threatening, or wretched, or expendable. Our memory is struggling to rescue the truth that human rights were not handed down as privileges from a parliament, or a boardroom, or an institution, but that peace is only possible with justice and with information that gives us the power to act justly.”

John Pilger (1939) Australian journalist

John Pilger, Sydney Peace Prize acceptance speech, University of Sydney, 4 November 2009

“Like other human freedoms, the freedoms embodied in market institutions are justified inasmuch as they meet human needs. Insofar as they fail to do this they can reasonably be altered. This is true not only of the rights that are involved in market institutions. It is true of all human rights.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

'Modus Vivendi' (p.36)
Gray's Anatomy: Selected Writings (2009)

“There are times, young fellah, when every one of us must make a stand for human right and justice, or you never feel clean again.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Lost World

Source: The Lost World

“Right knows no boundaries and justice no frontiers; the brotherhood of man is not a domestic institution.”

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

"A Pledge of Allegiance" - speech for "I Am an American Day" in Central Park, New York, New York. (20 May 1945).
Extra-judicial writings

“You sit up there, and you see the whole gamut of human nature. Even if the case being argued involves only a little fellow and $50, it involves justice. That's what is important.”

Earl Warren (1891–1974) United States federal judge

Interview in 1953 after being appointed to the Supreme Court, as quoted in Earl Warren : A Political Biography (1967) by Leo Katcher, p. 315
1950s

“Nature pulls one way and human nature another.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

“I have only known her for two years. But if you took every memory, every moment, if you stretched them end to end-they'd reach forever.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

“Give to every human being every right that you claim for yourself.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

"The Limitations of Toleration" (8 May 1888), in The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol VII
Source: The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child

“We understand America’s concerns about terrorism…We have no objection to agreements that protect your security interests. We only ask that you respect international standards on human rights and the Yemeni people’s rights to freedom and justice.”

Tawakkol Karman (1979) Yemeni journalist, politician, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

Source: 2010s, Yemen’s Unfinished Revolution, 2011

“All of our punishment institutions, including jails, laws, church confessionals, and so forth, are systems of illusion. The order of the universe, the infinite justice of yin and yang, naturally takes care of all motion and compensation. We don't need to invent arbitrary ways to make balance with punishments.”

Michio Kushi (1926–2014) Japanese educator

Source: Spiritual Journey: Michio Kushi's Guide to Endless Self-Realization and Freedom (1994, with Edward Esko), p. 57

Related topics