Quotes about justice
171 quotes from 112 people
The object of punishment is, prevention from evil; it never can be made impulsive to good.
Horace Mann1796–1859Lectures on Education (1855), Lecture 7Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.
H. L. Mencken1880–1956Prejudices, Third Series (1922), Ch. 3
Montesquieu1689–1755Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline (1734), p. 89Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great.
Moses1393–1273 BCDeuteronomy 1:17 (KJV)People, beware of injustice, for injustice shall be darkness on the Day of Judgment.
MMuhammad571–632Sunni Hadith
Edward R. Murrow1908–1965See It Now (1954)Rewriting unjust laws is a basic human right and fundamental obligation.
Huey P. Newton1942–1989“In Defense of Self-defense” I (June 20, 1967)
Reinhold Niebuhr1892–1971The Children of Light and The Children of Darkness (1944)But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!
Friedrich Nietzsche1844–1900Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883), Part II, Chapter 29, tr. Thomas CommonIn context
Barack Obamaborn 1961Nobel Prize acceptance speech (December 2009)No fairer law in all the land
Than that death-dealers die by what they’ve planned.
Ovid43 BC–AD 17Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love), Book I, lines 655–656 (tr. Len Krisak)They have a Right to censure, that have a Heart to help: The rest is Cruelty, not Justice.
William Penn1644–1718Fruits of Solitude (1682), Part I, 46
