Sunday, April 25, 2021 – Seeking Justice
Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint. ~ Alexander Hamilton
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual. ~ Thomas Jefferson
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever. ~ Thomas Jefferson
Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant. ~ Henry David Thoreau
In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery? ~ Saint Augustine
In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so. ~ Immanuel Kant
If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. ~ Henry David Thoreau
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. ~ Anatole France
You have undertaken to cheat me. I won’t sue you, for the law is too slow. I’ll ruin you. ~ Cornelius Vanderbilt
Possession isn’t nine-tenths of the law. It’s nine-tenths of the problem. ~ John Lennon
The law was made for one thing alone, for the exploitation of those who don’t understand it, or are prevented by naked misery from obeying it. ~ Bertolt Brecht
The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business. ~ Clarence Darrow
What a cage is to the wild beast, law is to the selfish man. ~ Herbert Spencer
It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important. ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same. ~ Albert Einstein
I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice. ~ Abraham Lincoln
Justice, that love gives, is a surrender, justice that law gives is a punishment. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door. ~ Charles Dickens
Peace is more important than all justice; and peace was not made for the sake of justice, but justice for the sake of peace. ~ Martin Luther
Parents are not interested in justice; they’re interested in peace and quiet. ~ Bill Cosby
Let judges secretly despair of justice: their verdicts will be more acute. Let generals secretly despair of triumph; killing will be defamed. Let priests secretly despair of faith: their compassion will be true. ~ Leonard Cohen
Justice should remove the bandage from her eyes long enough to distinguish between the vicious and the unfortunate. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll
Nobody gets justice. People only get good luck or bad luck. ~ Orson Welles
Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so. ~ Samuel Butler
The only justice is to follow the sincere intuition of the soul, angry or gentle. Anger is just, and pity is just, but judgment is never just. ~ D. H. Lawrence
Justice is the first virtue of those who command, and stops the complaints of those who obey. ~ Denis Diderot
Terror is only justice: prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country. ~ Maximillian Robespierre
Never pray for justice, because you might get some. ~ Margaret Atwood
Think carefully before asking for justice. Mercy might be safer. ~ Mason Cooley
The price of justice is eternal publicity. ~ Arnold Bennett
Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man, you take it. ~ Malcolm X
When love is gone, there’s always justice. And when justice is gone, there’s always force. And when force is gone, there’s always Mom. Hi, Mom! ~ Laurie Anderson
Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do. ~ Wendell Berry
Justice is like a train that is nearly always late. ~ Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Justice is not to be taken by storm. She is to be wooed by slow advances. ~ Benjamin Cardozo
Men are mad most of their lives; few live sane, fewer die so. The acts of people are baffling unless we realize that their wits are disordered. Man is driven to justice by his lunacy. ~ Edward Dahlberg
Crazy is a term of art; Insane is a term of law. Remember that, and you will save yourself a lot of trouble. ~ Hunter S. Thompson
Justice? You get justice in the next world. In this world you have the law. ~ William Gaddis
Who thinks the law has anything to do with justice? It’s what we have because we can’t have justice. ~ William McIlvanney
Justice is better than chivalry if we cannot have both. ~ Alice Stone Blackwell
Justice is the infrastructure of proprietorship. ~ Kemal Ataturk
Justice in the hands of the powerful is merely a governing system like any other. Why call it justice? Let us rather call it injustice, but of a sly effective order, based entirely on cruel knowledge of the resistance of the weak, their capacity for pain, humiliation and misery. Injustice sustained at the exact degree of necessary tension to turn the cogs of the huge machine-for-the-making-of-rich-men, without bursting the boiler. ~ Georges Bernanos
And if you ask again whether there is any justice in the world, you’ll have to be satisfied with the reply: Not for the time being; at any rate, not up to this Friday. ~ Alfred Doblin
Justice is the means by which established injustices are sanctioned. ~ Anatole France
You know, the courts may not be working any more, but as long as everyone is videotaping everyone else, justice will be done. ~ Marge Simpson
The most reasonable man always manages, when he pulls the trigger, to become a dispenser of justice. ~ Jean Genet
Absolute justice is achieved by the suppression of all contradictions; therefore it destroys freedom. ~ Albert Camus
Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do. ~ Voltaire
Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean. ~ Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
To show resentment at a reproach is to acknowledge that one may have deserved it. ~ Tacitus
Just Above Sunset 