64 Inspiring Justice Quotes

In a world constantly grappling with issues of equity and fairness, the quest for justice remains a critical and inspiring journey. Quotes about justice have the power to ignite change, motivate action, and offer solace to those fighting for a fairer society. Whether you're seeking inspiration for personal growth or fuel for social activism, these powerful words from historical figures, activists, and thought leaders resonate across time and contexts. Let's delve into a curated collection of 64 inspiring justice quotes that illuminate the path towards a more just world, and remind us of the enduring human spirit in the face of adversity.

1. “Truth never damages a cause that is just.” - Mahatma Gandhi

2. “If you read someone else's diary, you get what you deserve.” - David Sedaris

3. “I see no justice in that plan.""Who said," lashed out Isaac Penn, "that you, a man, can always perceive justice? Who said that justice is what you imagine? Can you be sure that you know it when you see it, that you will live long enough to recognize the decisive thunder of its occurrence, that it can be manifest within a generation, within ten generations, within the entire span of human existence? What you are talking about is common sense, not justice. Justice is higher and not as easy to understand -- until it presents itself in unmistakable splendor. The design of which I speak is far above our understanding. But we can sometimes feel its presence."No choreographer, no architect, engineer, or painter could plan more thoroughly and subtly. Every action and every scene has its purpose. And the less power one has, the closer he is to the great waves that sweep through all things, patiently preparing them for the approach of a future signified not by simple human equity (a child could think of that), but by luminous and surprising connections that we have not imagined, by illustrations terrifying and benevolent -- a golden age that will show not what we wish, but some bare awkward truth upon which rests everything that ever was and everything that ever will be. There is justice in the world, Peter Lake, but it cannot be had without mystery.” - Mark Helprin

4. “As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation -- either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

5. “It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.” - Voltaire

6. “..I began speaking.. First, I took issue with the media's characterization of the post-Katrina New Orleans as resembling the third world as its poor citizens clamored for a way out. I suggested that my experience in New Orleans working with the city's poorest people in the years before the storm had reflected the reality of third-world conditions in New Orleans, and that Katrina had not turned New Orleans into a third-world city but had only revealed it to the world as such. I explained that my work, running Reprieve, a charity that brought lawyers and volunteers to the Deep South from abroad to work on death penalty issues, had made it clear to me that much of the world had perceived this third-world reality, even if it was unnoticed by our own citizens. To try answer Ryan's question, I attempted to use my own experience to explain that for many people in New Orleans, and in poor communities across the country, the government was merely an antagonist, a terrible landlord, a jailer, and a prosecutor. As a lawyer assigned to indigent people under sentence of death and paid with tax dollars, I explained the difficulty of working with clients who stand to be executed and who are provided my services by the state, not because they deserve them, but because the Constitution requires that certain appeals to be filed before these people can be killed. The state is providing my clients with my assistance, maybe the first real assistance they have ever received from the state, so that the state can kill them. I explained my view that the country had grown complacent before Hurricane Katrina, believing that the civil rights struggle had been fought and won, as though having a national holiday for Martin Luther King, or an annual march by politicians over the bridge in Selma, Alabama, or a prosecution - forty years too late - of Edgar Ray Killen for the murder of civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi, were any more than gestures. Even though President Bush celebrates his birthday, wouldn't Dr. King cry if he could see how little things have changed since his death? If politicians or journalists went to Selma any other day of the year, they would see that it is a crumbling city suffering from all of the woes of the era before civil rights were won as well as new woes that have come about since. And does anyone really think that the Mississippi criminal justice system could possibly be a vessel of social change when it incarcerates a greater percentage of its population than almost any place in the world, other than Louisiana and Texas, and then compels these prisoners, most of whom are black, to work prison farms that their ancestors worked as chattel of other men? ...I hoped, out loud, that the post-Katrina experience could be a similar moment [to the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fiasco], in which the American people could act like the children in the story and declare that the emperor has no clothes, and hasn't for a long time. That, in light of Katrina, we could be visionary and bold about what people deserve. We could say straight out that there are people in this country who are racist, that minorities are still not getting a fair shake, and that Republican policies heartlessly disregard the needs of individual citizens and betray the common good. As I stood there, exhausted, in front of the thinning audience of New Yorkers, it seemed possible that New Orleans's destruction and the suffering of its citizens hadn't been in vain.” - Billy Sothern

7. “The time's gone by for sentiment and all that foolery. Mercy's all very well but after all it's justice that clinches the bargain.” - Walter de la Mare

8. “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” - Theodore Parker

9. “First, individual rights cannot be sacrificed for the sake of the general good, and second, the principles of justice that specify these rights cannot be premised on any particular vision of the good life. What justifies the rights is not that they maximize the general welfare or otherwise promote the good, but rather that they comprise a fair framework within which individuals and groups can choose their own values and ends, consistent with a similar liberty for others.” - Michael J. Sandel

10. “Earlier in [2007] the [Prime Minister's Office] had also drawn criticism for trying to muzzle the judiciary. The reproach came from Antonio Lamer, the former chief justice of the Supreme Court....'I must say I was taken aback,' said Lamer, who sat on the Supreme Court for twenty years. 'The prime minister is going the wrong route as regards the independence of the judiciary. He's trying to interfere with the sentencing process.” - Lawrence Martin

11. “...the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword.""...a ruler who hides behind paid executioners soon forgets what death is.” - George R.R. Martin

12. “Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land where justice is a game.” - Bob Dylan

13. “It is essential that justice be done, it is equally vital that justice not be confused with revenge, for the two are wholly different.” - Oscar Arias

14. “Let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the LORD, exercising loving kindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the LORD.” - Anonymous

15. “Knowledge which is divorced from justice may be called cunning rather than wisdom.” - Marcus Tullius Cicero

16. “There is no client as scary as an innocent man."J. Michael Haller, Criminal Defense Attorney, Los Angeles, 1962.” - Michael Connelly

17. “Why do people resist [engines, bridges, and cities] so? They are symbols and products of the imagination, which is the force that ensures justice and historical momentum in an imperfect world, because without imagination we would not have the wherewithal to challenge certainty, and we could never rise above ourselves.” - Mark Helprin

18. “Keep your language. Love its sounds, its modulation, its rhythm. But try to march together with men of different languages, remote from your own, who wish like you for a more just and human world.” - Helder Camara

19. “[Nonviolence] is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who happen to be doing the evil. It is evil that the nonviolent resister seeks to defeat, not the persons victimized by evil.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

20. “Allowing ourselves to become a nation of silent, secretive, timid citizens is likely to result in a system of democracy and justice that is neither very democratic nor very just.” - Dahlia Lithwick

21. “It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.” - Thomas Jefferson

22. “The foundation of individual rights is the assumption that people have wants and needs and are authorities on what those wants and needs are. If people's stated desires were just some kind of erasable inscription or reprogrammable brainwashing, any atrocity could be justified.” - Steven Pinker

23. “Here beyond men's judgments all covenants were brittle.” - Cormac McCarthy

24. “If there's hell below, we're all gonna go.” - Curtis Mayfield

25. “Go to the internet and go to the FBI website and go to their international list of top ten terrorists. You will see Bin Laden there, bring his name up and his picture. Amazingly, all the charges: the embassy of '98 and this other stuff is all listed. But, ironically nothing on 9/11. NOTHING! Now when the FBI was pressed as to why 9/11 wasn't included, their response was "We don't have enough evidence." Now, people, if you're like me that is extremely disturbing; we've fought two wars, we've changed our entire foreign policy and we've had the PATRIOT act put on us, all, supposedly, because of Osama Bin Laden!” - Jesse Ventura

26. “I will go forth as a real outlaw," he said, "and as men do robbery on the highway I will do right on the highway; and it will be counted a wilder crime.” - G.K. Chesterton

27. “The capacity to accept suffering for the sake of goodness, truth and justice is an essential criterion of humanity, because if my own well-being and safety are ultimately more important than truth and justice, then the power of the stronger prevails, then violence and untruth reigns supreme.” - Pope Benedict-XVI

28. “Well, listen a moment, Monsieur Mayor; I have often been severe in my life towards others. It was just. I did right. Now if I were not severe towards myself, all I have justly done would become injustice. Should I spare myself more than others? No. What! if I should be prompt only to punish others and not myself, I should be a wretched indeed! - Javert to M. Madeleine” - Victor Hugo

29. “You cannot live a nonviolent life as long as you are consuming violence. Please consider going vegan.” - GaryLFrancione

30. “Any serious social, political, and economic change must include veganism.” - GaryLFrancione

31. “We should never present flesh as somehow morally distinguishable from dairy. To the extent it is morally wrong to eat flesh, it is as morally wrong — and possibly more morally wrong — to consume dairy” - GaryLFrancione

32. “So it is always preferable to discuss the matter of veganism in a non-judgemental way. Remember that to most people, eating flesh or dairy and using animal products such as leather, wool, and silk, is as normal as breathing air or drinking water. A person who consumes dairy or uses animal products is not necessarily or usually what a recent and unpopular American president labelled an "evil doer.” - GaryLFrancione

33. “We should always be clear that animal exploitation is wrong because it involves speciesism. And speciesism is wrong because, like racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-semitism, classism, and all other forms of human discrimination, speciesism involves violence inflicted on members of the moral community where that infliction of violence cannot be morally justified. But that means that those of us who oppose speciesism necessarily oppose discrimination against humans. It makes no sense to say that speciesism is wrong because it is like racism (or any other form of discrimination) but that we do not have a position about racism. We do. We should be opposed to it and we should always be clear about that.” - GaryLFrancione

34. “To say that a being who is sentient has no interest in continuing to live is like saying that a being with eyes has no interest in continuing to see. Death—however “humane”—is a harm for humans and nonhumans alike.” - Gary L. Francione

35. “We can no more justify using nonhumans as human resources than we can justify human slavery. Animal use and slavery have at least one important point in common: both institutions treat sentient beings exclusively as resources of others. That cannot be justified with respect to humans; it cannot be justified with respect to nonhumans—however “humanely” we treat them.” - Gary L. Francione

36. “Wendy is still dead. I hadn't understood before: it really doesn't bring them back. Somehow, you think, despite what you know, it will be a trade. Find the person who did the wrong thing and they will suffer instead of the one who was killed. Instead, that person just suffers too.” - Mariah Fredericks

37. “Justice might well prevail in the end, but ordinary people like me had no guarantee of surviving that long. We might get killed on the whim of some serial killer first.” - Kouhei Kadono

38. “What I'm saying to you this morning is that Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the Kingdom of Brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of Communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

39. “Rekao je: Nisu za griješnicima plakali ni nebo ni zemlja. A ja sam mislio: teško čovjeku ako su mu mjera nebo i zemlja.” - Meša Selimović

40. “For every crime that comes before him, a judge is required to complete a perfect syllogism in which the major premise must be the general law; the minor, the action that conforms or does not conform to the law; and the conclusion, acquittal or punishment. If the judge were constrained, or if he desired to frame even a single additional syllogism, the door would thereby be opened to uncertainty.” - Cesare Beccaria

41. “Tighe took control of his thoughts.“You need to use the bathroom. When I tell you to, go into the house. Two cats will try to comein with you. You must let them in. Don’t allow anyone to stop them. Once inside the house, you’llgo into the bathroom and close the door, pull down your pants, then curl up on the floor and go tosleep.”The bastard’s career would be over when they caught him, literally, with his pants down. But hedeserved it for kicking a cat.” - Pamela Palmer

42. “Only remember this: to seek justice is a good and noble thing, to seek revenge out of hatred is something that wiil devour your very soul.” - James Mace

43. “Standing still is never an option so long as inequities remain embedded in the very fabric of the culture.” - Tim Wise

44. “But even when the principle of equal treatment was betrayed, American leaders in every era have emphatically affirmed it, not so much out of hypocrisy as out of aspiration. Indeed, for those who were devoted to justice, the persistence of inequality was precisely what made equality before the law so imperative.” - Glenn Greenwald

45. “Court games aren't fair. They don't judge men by their worth, and they aren't about what's just. Guilty men can hold power their whole lives and be wept for when they pass. Innocent men can be spent like coins because it's convenient. You don't have to have sinned for them to ruin you. If your destruction is useful to them, you'll be destroyed.” - Daniel Abraham

46. “Remember, what goes around comes around, if you give out venom, sooner or later it will come back to poison you” - TheEmoQueen

47. “Sometimes evil wins, nah, child. But it’s always fleeting. Just a temporary ripple in a sea of goodness, brought on by the carnal nature of greed ’n corruption. Sacrifice washes that ripple out in waves of love ’n light, and peace is found when justice is served, even for those who lose, ya hear?” - Rachael Wade

48. “There is a kind of virtue that lies not in extraordinary actions, not in saving poor orphans from burning buildings, but in steadfastly working for a world where orphans are not poor and buildings comply with decent fire codes.” - Randy Cohen

49. “The Indian criminal justice system was a market like garbage, Abdul now understood. Innocence and guilt could be bought and sold like a kilo of polyurethane bags.” - Katherine Boo

50. “If the system turns away from the abuses inflicted on the guilty, then who can be next but the innocents?” - Michael Connelly

51. “You are not wrong. You fought to protect your world. Isn't that good enough? After all, justice in this world is just a bunch of principles made by those with power to suit themselves. No one really thinks of others, you will lose everything if you cannot keep up. Only two kinds of people exist in this world—those who steal and those who are stolen from. So then, today, I just stole your future. That's all.” - Yana Toboso

52. “The fact that she was still alive felt wrong, out of balance. She didn't feel special, or protected, or gods-bound. She thought the gods had acted to protect the roan, and she had just been along for the ride. It was the roan who was special, not she.I should be dead, she thought. If she was dead, then all would have been settled. The warlord's men would have been satisfied to see her body swept away, the roan would have been safe from Beck's whip, the ghost of tyhe man she had killed could have gone to his rest. There was a rounding off - a justice - in her death. But alive, no one was satisfied and no one was safe.” - Pamela Freeman

53. “Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.” - H.L. Mencken

54. “Your edict, King, was strong,But all your strength is weakness itself againstThe immortal unrecorded laws of God.They are not merely now: they were, and shall be,Operative for ever, beyond man utterly.I knew I must die, even without your decree:I am only mortal. And if I must dieNow, before it is my time to die,Surely this is no hardship: can anyoneLiving, as I live, with evil all about me,Think Death less than a friend?” - Sophocles

55. “Issues are like tissues. You pull one out and another appears!” - Gary Goldstein

56. “I have the documents. Documents, proof, evidence, photograph, signature. One day you raise your right hand and you are American. They give you an American Pass port. The United States of America. Somewhere someone has taken my identity and replaced it with their photograph. The other one. Their signature their seals. Their own image. And you learn the executive branch the legislative branch and the third. Justice. Judicial branch. It makes the difference The rest is past.” - Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

57. “For a successful revolution it is not enough that there is discontent. What is required is a profound and thorough conviction of the justice, necessity and importance of political and social rights.” - Bhim Rao Ambedkar

58. “Death is the fairest thing in the world. No one's ever gotten out of it. The earth takes everyone - the kind, the cruel, the sinners. Aside from that, there's no fairness on earth.” - Svetlana Aleksievich

59. “In the old Republican days the subject of slavery and of the saving of the Union made appeals to the consciences and liberty-loving instincts of the people. These later years have been full of talk about commerce and dinner pails, but I feel sure that the American conscience and the American love of liberty have not been smothered. They will break through this crust of sordidness and realize that those only keep their liberties who accord liberty to others.” - Benjamin Harrison

60. “If a theory of justice is to guide reasoned choice of policies, strategies or institutions, then the identification of fully just social arrangements is neither necessary nor sufficient.” - Amartya Sen

61. “There is no such thing as justice, all the best that we can hope for is revenge.” - Emilie Autumn

62. “If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for, at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them.” - Paul Wellstone

63. “If you spend your time hoping someone will suffer the consequences for what they did to your heart, then you're allowing them to hurt you a second time in your mind.” - Shannon L. Alder

64. “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.” - J.M. Coetzee