Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Justice

"Whereas in Greek the idea of justice was akin to harmony, in Hebrew it is akin to holiness." - Joseph H. Hertz, fully Rabbi Joseph Herman Hertz

"The prophet perceives the whole world in terms of justice or injustice." - Abraham Joshua Heschel

"Life is like a tapestry that we view from the wrong side. We see all the strands and knots, and it makes no sense from the back. But there is a different view of the whole things to which we are assured some day we will be privy. In the meanwhile, there are all these knots we have to deal with existentially; the path has been charted – compassion and justice – imbued by vision. And it’s up to the individual." - Huston Smith, fully Huston Cummings Smith

"Liberty, rightly understood, is an inestimable blessing, but liberty without wisdom, and without justice, is no better than wild and savage licentiousness." - James Kent

"An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its justice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Peace is not merely the absence of war, but the presence of justice." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Throw away holiness and wisdom and people will be a hundred times happier. Throw away morality and justice, and people will do the right thing. Throw away industry and profit, and there won’t be any thieves." - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

"Justice, being violated, destroys; justice, being preserved, preserves: therefore justice must not be violated, lest violated justice destroy us." - Laws of Manu, aka Manusmṛti, Manusmriti, Manusmruti or Mānava-Dharmaśāstra NULL

"The term justice may even be used for charity; for charity renders a man’s will conformable to the whole law of God, and accordingly charity in a way contains within itself the sum of all the virtues." -

"Virtues transcend time and culture (although their cultural expression may vary); justice and kindness, for example, will always and everywhere be virtues, regardless of how many people exhibit them." - Thomas Lickona, fully Thomas Edward Lickona

"We feel God present in nature, whether in its awe or its beauty; and in human history, whether in its justice or its weird mysteriousness; and in the life of a good man, or the circumstances of a generous or noble act. Most of all we feel Him near when conscience, His inward messenger, speaks plainly and decisively to us." -

"Compassion is no substitute for justice." - Rush Limbaugh

"It is as much the duty of government to render prompt justice against itself, in favor of citizens, as it is to administer the same between private individuals." - Abraham Lincoln

"Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man, you take it." -

"With your votes you are working for your future. It is not a holiday; it is the most serious day of work since you were born. Better to come in clothing dirty from work than with your soul filthy from having sold your right to justice." - Luis Muñoz Marín

"Four things support the world: the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the good, and the valor of the brave." - Muhammad, also spelled Mohammad, Mohammed or Mahomet, full name Muhammad Ibn `Abd Allāh Ibn `Abd al-Muttalib NULL

"There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice." - Charles De Montesquieu, formally Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu

"Peace cannot be limited to a mere absence of war, the result of an ever precarious balance of forces. No, peace is something built up day after day, in the pursuit of an order intended by God, which implies a more perfect form of justice among men and women." - Pope Paul VI, born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini NULL

"Holiness toward God and justice toward men usually go together." -

"It is absurd to seek peace while rejecting God. For where God is left out, justice is left out, and where justice is lacking there can be no hope of peace." - Pope Pius X, aka Saint Pope Pius X and Pope of the Eucharist, born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto NULL

"One hour in the execution of justice is worth seventy years of prayer." - Islamic Proverbs

"If virtue be the spring of popular government in times of peace, the spring of that government during a revolution is virtue combined with terror: virtue, without which terror is destructive; terror, without which virtue is impotent. Terror is the 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." - Maximilien Robespierre, fully Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre

"Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both." - Eleanor Roosevelt, fully Anna Eleanor Roosevelt

"The fundamental principle of all morality is that man is a being naturally good, loving justice and order; that there is not any original perversity in the human heart, and that the first movements of nature are always right." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"Throughout history it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph." - Haile Selassie

"Among the smaller duties of life, I hardly know any one more important than that of not praising where praise is not due. Reputation is one of the prizes for which men contend: it produces more labor and more talent than twice the wealth of a country could ever rear up. It is the coin of genius, and it is the imperious duty of every man to bestow it with the most scrupulous justice and the wisest economy." - Sydney Smith

"The only true way to make the mass of mankind see the beauty of justice is by showing to them in pretty plain terms the consequences of injustice." - Sydney Smith

"Justice - Truth is its handmaid, freedom is its child, peace its companion, safety walks in its steps, victory follows in its train; it is the brightest emanation from the gospel; it is the attribute of God." - Sydney Smith

"Extreme justice is often extreme injustice." -

"Justice is that side of love which affirms the independent right of person within the love relation." -

"Stability and peace in our land will not come from the barrel of a gun, because peace without justice is an impossibility." - Desmond Tutu, fully Desmond Mpilo Tutu

"Truth all religion comprehends, in truth alone is justice placed, in truth the words of God are based." - Valmiki NULL

"It is easy to be honest enough not to be hanged. To be really honest means to subdue one’s prepossessions, ideals - stating things fairly, not humoring your argument - doing justice to your enemies... making confession whether you can afford it or not; refusing unmerited praise; looking painful truths in the face." - Aubrey de Vere, fully Aubrey Albericus de Vere NULL

"Whoever tramples on the plea for justice temperately made in the name of peace only outrages peace and kills something fine in the heart of man which God put there when we got our manhood." - William Allen White

"We live by Faith; but Faith is not the slave of text and legend. Reason’s voice and God’s, Nature’s and Duty’s, never are at odds. What asks our Father of His children, save justice and mercy and humility, a reasonable service of good deeds, pure living, tenderness to human needs, reverence and trust, and prayer for light to see the Master’s footprints in our daily ways? No knotted scourge nor sacrificial knife, but the calm beauty of an ordered life whose very breathing is unworded praise! A life that stands as all true lives have stood firm-rooted in the faith that God is good." - John Greenleaf Whittier

"The business of America is not business. Neither is it war. The business of America is justice, and securing the blessings of liberty." -

"The yuppie generation are very good gameplayers, but morally, ethically, they have no idea what they’re about. To them, justice is efficiency, not fairness." -

"Say, what is Honor? – `Tis the finest sense of justice which the human mind can frame." - William Wordsworth

"Liberty, equality - bad principles! The only true principle for humanity is justice; and justice to the feeble is protection and kindness." -

"I am convinced that the truest act of courage, the strongest act of manliness is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally non-violent struggle for justice." -

"All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." - Winston Churchill, fully Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill

"There is no such thing as justice - in or out of the court." -

"Justice is truth in action." -

"I am firmly convinced that the passionate will for justice and truth has done more to improve [the human condition] than calculating political shrewdness which in the long run only breeds general mistrust." - Albert Einstein

"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

"The realm of love, reason, and justice exists only because, and inasmuch as, man has been able to develop these powers in himself throughout the process of his evolution. In this view there is no meaning to life except the meaning man himself gives to it; man is utterly alone except inasmuch as he helps another." -

"There is a higher court of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts." -