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“No society can prosper where justice is delayed, dignity denied, and voices silenced. To protect rights is to protect humanity itself. A nation that neglects justice digs its own grave.”

Last update Sept. 26, 2026. History

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“A society that has no ideals, that discards the principles of humanitarianism, that abandons the fundamental rights and dignity of humanity, can only survive by denying truth, fairness and justice.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2000-09, Our Duty Is to Remember Sichuan, 2009

“Disabled people have to be protected. A society which will not protect the weak has no respect for human dignity.”

Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi (1958) Japanese bishop

Source: Japan knife attack shows disabled persons 'have to be protected' https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/34269/japan-knife-attack-shows-disabled-persons-have-to-be-protected (July 29, 2016)

“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

“As a general truth, communities prosper and flourish, or droop and decline, in just the degree that they practise or neglect to practise the primary duties of justice and humanity.”

William H. Seward (1801–1872) American lawyer and politician

On the Irrepressible Conflict (1858)
Context: As a general truth, communities prosper and flourish, or droop and decline, in just the degree that they practise or neglect to practise the primary duties of justice and humanity. The free-labor system conforms to the divine law of equality, which is written in the hearts and consciences of man, and therefore is always and everywhere beneficent.
The slave system is one of constant danger, distrust, suspicion, and watchfulness. It debases those whose toil alone can produce wealth and resources for defence, to the lowest degree of which human nature is capable, to guard against mutiny and insurrection, and thus wastes energies which otherwise might be employed in national development and aggrandizement. The free-labor system educates all alike, and by opening all the fields of industrial employment and all the departments of authority, to the unchecked and equal rivalry of all classes of men, at once secures universal contentment, and brings into the highest possible activity all the physical, moral, and social energies of the whole state.

“Democracy is not an end in itself, but a means to achieve the sacred promises of human dignity, justice and peace.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Alfred de Zayas' aphorisms http://www.alfreddezayas.com/aphorisms.shtml.

“[C]oercive human interactions [are] destructive, even where the coercion is urged from honorable motives, and advocates confining the use of physical force in human relations to instances of the administration of justice understood as the protection and maintenance of individual (negative) human rights.”

Tibor R. Machan (1939–2016) Hungarian-American philosopher

Source: Private Rights and Public Illusions (1994), p. xvi

“Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Letter to three students (October 1967) as translated in Solzhenitsyn: A Documentary Record (1970) edited by Leopold Labedz (1970) “The Struggle Intensifies".

“Justice must always question itself, just as society can exist only by means of the work it does on itself and on its institutions.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

“Powerful groups set constraints on and may even determine the actions of state authority. They constitute the society that is protected by the state; their particular concept of justice reigns. The definition and functioning of property rights tend to advance their interest and welfare. …the basic domestic function of the state is to define and protect property rights of individuals and groups. …The primary external function of the state is to protect the property rights and personal security of its members vis-à-vis the citizens and actions of other states.”

Robert Gilpin (1930–2018) Political scientist

War and Change in World Politics (1981)

“The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Ch. 1 Marchamont Nedham : The Right Constitution of a Commonwealth Examined http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/print_documents/v1ch16s15.html  <br class="br">1780s, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government (1787) <br class="br">Context: The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If "Thou shall not covet," and "Thou shall not steal," are not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.

“No society can prosper where justice is delayed, dignity denied, and voices silenced. To protect rights is to protect humanity itself. A nation that neglects justice digs its own grave.”

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