Quotes about justice

Revenge is a kind of wild justice

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same

Judge not, that ye be not judged.

Everyone blames his memory, no one blames his judgment.

Most people judge men only by success or by fortune.

Good taste arises more from judgment than wit.

Innocence is most fortunate if it finds the same protection as crime.

The criminal is often enough not equal to his deed: he extenuates and maligns it.

Our vanity is most difficult to wound just when our pride has been wounded.

One is punished best for one’s virtues.

One MUST repay good and ill; but why just to the person who did us good or ill?

Memory may vanish so long as at the moment judgment does not fail you.

The senses do not deceive; it is the judgment that deceives.

It is often the case that the man who can’t tell a lie thinks he is the best judge of one.

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.

No crime is vulgar, but all vulgarity is crime. Vulgarity is the conduct of others.

ALDERMAN, n. An ingenious criminal who covers his secret thieving with a pretence of open marauding.

AMNESTY, n. The state’s magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.

BIGAMY, n. A mistake in taste for which the wisdom of the future will adjudge a punishment called trigamy.

DESTINY, n. A tyrant’s authority for crime and fool’s excuse for failure.

EAVESDROP, v.i. Secretly to overhear a catalogue of the crimes and vices of another or yourself.

IMPENITENCE, n. A state of mind intermediate in point of time between sin and punishment.

INCOMPATIBILITY, n. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination. Incompatibility may, however, consist of a meek-eyed matron living just around the corner. It has even been known to wear a moustache.

INJUSTICE, n. A burden which of all those that we load upon others and carry ourselves is lightest in the hands and heaviest upon the back.

JUSTICE, n. A commodity which is a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service.

LAWFUL, adj. Compatible with the will of a judge having jurisdiction.

MAJESTY, n. The state and title of a king. Regarded with a just contempt by the Most Eminent Grand Masters, Grand Chancellors, Great Incohonees and Imperial Potentates of the ancient and honorable orders of republican America.

MISDEMEANOR, n. An infraction of the law having less dignity than a felony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal society.

PARDON, v. To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.

PENITENT, adj. Undergoing or awaiting punishment.

PIRACY, n. Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.

POSTERITY, n. An appellate court which reverses the judgment of a popular author’s contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure competitor.

REPENTANCE, n. The faithful attendant and follower of Punishment. It is usually manifest in a degree of reformation that is not inconsistent with continuity of sin.

RETRIBUTION, n. A rain of fire-and-brimstone that falls alike upon the just and such of the unjust as have not procured shelter by evicting them.

WASHINGTONIAN, n. A Potomac tribesman who exchanged the privilege of governing himself for the advantage of good government. In justice to him it should be said that he did not want to.

The passions possess a certain injustice and self interest which makes it dangerous to follow them, and in reality we should distrust them even when they appear most trustworthy.

Jealousy is in a manner just and reasonable, as it tends to preserve a good which belongs, or which we believe belongs to us, on the other hand envy is a fury which cannot endure the happiness of others.

If we judge of love by the majority of its results it rather resembles hatred than friendship.

There is real love just as there are real ghosts; every person speaks of it, few persons have seen it.

The love of justice is simply in the majority of men the fear of suffering injustice.

Self love increases or diminishes for us the good qualities of our friends, in proportion to the satisfaction we feel with them, and we judge of their merit by the manner in which they act towards us.

Men and things have each their proper perspective; to judge rightly of some it is necessary to see them near, of others we can never judge rightly but at a distance.

For the credit of virtue we must admit that the greatest misfortunes of men are those into which they fall through their crimes.

Gratitude is as the good faith of merchants: it holds commerce together; and we do not pay because it is just to pay debts, but because we shall thereby more easily find people who will lend.

A quickness in believing evil without having sufficiently examined it, is the effect of pride and laziness. We wish to find the guilty, and we do not wish to trouble ourselves in examining the crime.

Some disguised lies so resemble truth, that we should judge badly were we not deceived.

We should not judge of a man’s merit by his great abilities, but by the use he makes of them.

However disposed the world may be to judge wrongly, it far oftener favours false merit than does justice to true.

However wicked men may be, they do not dare openly to appear the enemies of virtue, and when they desire to persecute her they either pretend to believe her false or attribute crimes to her.

The pia fraus is still more repugnant to the taste (the “piety”) of the free spirit (the “pious man of knowledge”) than the impia fraus. Hence the profound lack of judgment, in comparison with the Church, characteristic of the type “free spirit”—as ITS non-freedom.

The advocates of a criminal are seldom artists enough to turn the beautiful terribleness of the deed to the advantage of the doer.

Men get out of countenance with themselves and others because they treat the means as the end, and so, from sheer doing, do nothing, or, perhaps, just what they would have avoided.

In Botany there is a species of plants called Incompletæ; and just in the same way it can be said that there are men who are incomplete and imperfect. They are those whose desires and struggles are out of proportion to their actions and achievements.

Justice insists on obligation, law on decorum. Justice weighs and decides, law superintends and orders. Justice refers to the individual, law to society.

No nation gains the power of judgment except it can pass judgment on itself. But to attain this great privilege takes a very long time.

It is said that vain self-praise stinks in the nostrils. That may be so; but for the kind of smell which comes from unjust blame by others the public has no nose at all.

It is difficult to be just to the passing moment. We are bored by it if it is neither good nor bad; but the good moment lays a task upon us, and the bad moment a burden.

To live in a great idea means to treat the impossible as though it were possible. It is just the same with a strong character; and when an idea and a character meet, things arise which fill the world with wonder for thousands of years.

A man does not mind being blamed for his faults, and being punished for them, and he patiently suffers much for the sake of them; but he becomes impatient if he is required to give them up.

To sit in judgment on the departed is never likely to be equitable. We all suffer from life; who except God can call us to account? Let not their faults and sufferings, but what they have accomplished and done, occupy the survivors.