Best 4420 quotes in «justice quotes» category

If I had simply agreed to serve out my time in prison, doing whatever I could to shorten the sentence, it would have been the smartest thing I could do in terms of the future of my own life. It would however have meant lending my endorsement to the legitimacy of the verdict and sentence issued against me. Instead, I opted for a gesture of complete rejection—flight, escape—to make an unmistakable distinction between truth and lie, justice and injustice, the law and blatant abuse of power.

If I owe a person money, and cannot pay him, and he threatens to put me in prison, another person can take the debt upon himself, and pay it for me. But if I have committed a crime, every circumstance of the case is changed. Moral justice cannot take the innocent for the guilty even if the innocent would offer itself. To suppose justice to do this, is to destroy the principle of its existence, which is the thing itself. It is then no longer justice. It is indiscriminate revenge.

If it is irrational and hypocritical to hold a minor to the same standard of behaviour control as a mature adult, it is equally unjust to hold a traumatised and neurologically impaired adult to the same standard as one not so afflicted

If I were to believe in God enough to call him a murderer, then I might also believe enough that he, as a spirit, exists beyond death; and therefore only he could do it righteously. For the physical being kills a man and hatefully sends him away, whereas God, the spiritual being, kills a man and lovingly draws him nigh.

If law is laid waste and order destroyed, no poor man can survive: when he is robbed, justice does not address him.

If logic and reason, the hard, cold products of the mind, can be relied upon to deliver justice or produce the truth, how is it that these brain-heavy judges rarely agree? Five-to-four decisions are the rule, not the exception. Nearly half of the court must be unjust and wrong nearly half of the time. Each decision, whether the majority or minority, exudes logic and reason like the obfuscating ink from a jellyfish, and in language as opaque. The minority could have as easily become the decision of the court. At once we realize that logic, no matter how pretty and neat, that reason, no matter how seemingly profound and deep, does not necessarily produce truth, much less justice. Logic and reason often become but tools used by those in power to deliver their load of injustice to the people. And ultimate truth, if, indeed, it exists, is rarely recognizable in the endless rows of long words that crowd page after page of most judicial regurgitations.

If not us, then who? Who's going to stand when everyone else kneels? Who's going to argue for the law even when there's no justice to be had? Who's going to try even when the trying is too damn hard?

If one could be enraged by the loss of a favorite sports team, shouldn't his anger rise at the entrenchment of a scheme whereby no innocent person was safe, where self-determination was a crime punished by the vagaries of an opaque & impervious justice system?

If our social justice is guided by retribution, we will simply perpetuate the use and abuse of power to inflict violence.

If people are troubled by their view, they ought to offer these New Orleanians, and black and poor people in the places like the Lower Ninth Ward around the country, a reason to believe otherwise.

If Petey were keeping one of her lists of the things she hated, she would have to add: the fact that there was no justice.

If people have no respect for God, no love for their Maker, I would ask the question another way: Why not pillage, rape, persecute and murder? If it feels good, and they can get away with it, why not? If God is dead or does not exist, as these people believe, why are not all things permitted? Why should they restrain themselves? Because it’s just wrong? Because it’s not the way civilized people behave? Because what goes around comes around? Because they’ll end up feeling terrible inside? Within tidy circles of properly socialized and reasonable people, such appeals can seem like they actually have the power to restrain people from doing what they otherwise feel like doing. But in the real world outside the philosophy seminar room, oppressors frankly don’t care that you think it’s just wrong. Who are you, they ask, to foist your random moral intuition on them? Who are you to tell them or the lords of the Third Reich what civilized people should and should not do? If what goes around tends to come around, then there’s no moral problem, only a practical problem of making sure it doesn’t come around to you. They think, Fine, if being brutal makes you feel terrible inside, then don’t do it. But it makes me feel powerful, alive, exhilarated and masterful, so quit whining — unless you want to try to stop me. This description of a dark Nietzschean world of self-will — a vacuum devoid of moral authority or spiritual resources for good — used to sen excessively melodramatic to me. But then I got out more. The world is truly full of brutal oppression because humans have rejected their Maker, the source of all goodness, mercy, compassion, truth, justice, and love.

If someone's deeds lower his position, his pedigree cannot elevate it.

If the ox of an Israelite bruise the ox of a Gentile, the Israelite is exempt from paying damages; but should the ox of a Gentile bruise the ox of an Israelite, the Gentile is bound to recompense him in full.' -- Bava Kama, fol. 38, Col. 2" -- Hebraic Literature, page 31

If there is any society where the leaders lack the knowledge and the importance of justice, then oppression will be a common neighbor of the citizens.

If there is anything the leaders in the society or the nations must take note of is to know the importance of justice.

If there is any society among robbers and murderers, they must at least. . . .abstain from robbing and murdering one another. So beneficence is less essential than justice is to the existence of society; a lack of beneficence will make a society uncomfortable, but the prevalence of injustice will utterly destroy it.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. ...Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. ...Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

...if (they) wish to love God, (they) be prepared to do so no matter what His intentions. God is not just, God is not kind, God is not merciful, and understanding that is essential to true devotion.

If this planet is to be transformed for the better, then we as individuals must first transform ourselves.

If we are ever going to see a paradigm shift, we have to be clear about how we want the present paradigm to shift. We must be clear that veganism is the unequivocal baseline of anything that deserves to be called an “animal rights” movement. If “animal rights” means anything, it means that we cannot morally justify any animal exploitation; we cannot justify creating animals as human resources, however “humane” that treatment may be. We must stop thinking that people will find veganism “daunting” and that we have to promote something less than veganism. If we explain the moral ideas and the arguments in favor of veganism clearly, people will understand. They may not all go vegan immediately; in fact, most won’t. But we should always be clear about the moral baseline. If someone wants to do less as an incremental matter, let that be her/his decision, and not something that we advise to do. The baseline should always be clear. We should never be promoting “happy” or “humane” exploitation as morally acceptable.

If we are not registering bad events in history to learn from them, then why are we even still publishing them at all? Is it really an outlandish ideal to want a peaceful and prosperous nation, one ruled only by compassion, truth and justice? As of now, there is no peace, no truth, no prosperity, no compassion - and NO COMMON SENSE. Since when did the words human and inhumane share the same meaning?

If we had more justice there would be less need of charity.

If we keep being fair despite the injustices against us, in the end, life will reward us, I believe. The world isn't fair, because it's imperfect. Right and wrong coexist. But we should stick to morality to help the world become better.

If we know in what way society is unbalanced, we must do what we can to add weight to the lighter scale ... we must have formed a conception of equilibrium and be ever ready to change sides like justice, 'that fugitive from the camp of conquerors'.

If we followed our feelings all the time, we'd be like cats chasin' their tails.

If we take the position that an assessment that veganism is morally preferable to vegetarianism is not possible because we are all “on our own journey,” then moral assessment becomes completely impossible or is speciesist. It is impossible because if we are all “on our own journey,” then there is nothing to say to the racist, sexist, anti-semite, homophobe, etc. If we say that those forms of discrimination are morally bad, but, with respect to animals, we are all “on our own journey” and we cannot make moral assessments about, for instance, dairy consumption, then we are simply being speciesist and not applying the same moral analysis to nonhumans that we apply to the human context.

If you are going to hide yourself and you will not stand against the work of the bad people, you have given them an endorsement.

If we want truth and justice to rule our global village, there must be no hypocrisy. If there is no truth, then there will be no equality. No equality, no justice. No justice, no peace. No peace, no love. No love, only darkness.

If you are not there for other people, do not expect them to be there for you. In many a case one might conclude that this is part of God's sovereign justice. His grace, however, is that He Himself will always be there for you, no matter what.

If you are neutral in times of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

If you are really angry, then you must be willing to pay the price of being alone or be remanded for someone else to have their freedom, illumination and justice.

If we show compassion to one other, every day will be a Christmas, a glad occasion.

If you don't fight for your rights, you won't be able to help others fight for their own.

If you do not laugh at the absurdity of the world you will cry at its injustice.

If you force me to pay a debt that is not mine, let me thank you in the afterlife

If you love truth, you will love justice. If you love justice, you will love peace. If you love peace, you will love unity. If you love unity, you will love harmony. If you love harmony, you will love the world.

If you have power, be just; wealth, be generous; knowledge, be wise; titles, be humble; and life, be grateful.

If you're living in country ruled by criminals it's hard to find justice

If you tell me the truth, the truth I’ll proclaim. If you tell me a lie, you’ll be fair game.

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner. -Nelson Mandela, activist, South African president, Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1918)

If you want the best evidence of just how strong our democracy is, come into the courtroom.

Ignorance and fanaticism is ever busy and needs feeding. Always it is feeding and gloating for more.

I give a call today to the civil servants around the world - yours is to serve, not the government, not the politicians, not even the constitution, but the people. You are the first servants of the society. On your shoulders, lies the responsibility of humanity's present and future. If the armed forces are our last line of defense in any corner of the world, then you are our first line of defense in every corner of the world. Injustice must ask your permission before entering the lives of the people. You, civil servants are the first vanguards of the society.

I go where I want to go, I do what I want to do, and I am beholden to no one.

I have joyfully done much evil in my life to those who have wished me evil (General Maximus)

I have come from my town, I have descended from my nome, I have done justice for its lord, I have satisfied him with what he loves. I spoke truly, I did right, I spoke fairly, I repeated fairly, I seized the right moment, So as to stand well with people. I judged between two so as to content them, I rescued the weak from one stronger than he I gave bread to the hungry, clothes (to the naked), I brought the boatless to land. I buried him who had no son, I made a boat for him who lacked one. I respected my father, I pleased my mother. I raised their children. So says he whose nickname is Sheshi. INSCRIPTION OF NEFER-SESHEM-RE CALLED SHESHI

I have lived through an eventful year, yet understand no more of it than a babe in arms. Of all the people of this town I am the one least fitted to write a memorial. Better the blacksmith with his cries of rage and woe.

I have not encouraged talk about man’s holy privacy, although I do respect and defend man’s right to have it.

I have not harmed her. I have not allowed harm to come to her. It's more than her lot has ever offered me, and English has seen what befalls them when they press the boot on our necks. She has survived the wages of justice through luck, mettle, and wit enough to open her eyes. English finally sees. If I'm to be ruled, may it be by those who see.