69 Powerful Quotes On Injustice

In a world where fairness and equality are still goals rather than realities, powerful words can ignite change and inspire movements against injustice. Throughout history, influential figures, writers, and thinkers have used the power of their voices to illuminate the darkness of inequality and motivate collective action. In this blog post, we delve into a curated collection of 69 powerful quotes on injustice. Each quote resonates with the enduring struggle against oppression, offering insight and encouragement to those who dare to dream of a just world. Whether you're seeking inspiration for your own fight against injustice or looking to understand its impact, these words are a testament to the resilience and spirit of justice-seekers everywhere. Join us as we explore these profound reflections on injustice and the hope they inspire for a brighter future.

1. “Rage — whether in reaction to social injustice, or to our leaders’ insanity, or to those who threaten or harm us — is a powerful energy that, with diligent practice, can be transformed into fierce compassion.” - Bonnie Myotai Treace

2. “I'm really very sorry for you all, but it's an unjust world, and virtue is triumphant only in theatrical performances.” - W.S. Gilbert

3. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

4. “If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.” - Charles Darwin

5. “Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.” - Honoré de Balzac

6. “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” - Voltaire

7. “In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice.” - Charles Dickens

8. “People don't always get what they deserve in this world.” - Lemony Snicket

9. “Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.” - Samuel Johnson

10. “I am a person who is unhappy with things as they stand. We cannot accept the world as it is. Each day we should wake up foaming at the mouth because of the injustice of things.” - Hugo Claus

11. “The world was fucked up. It was hard to say how exactly, but we could feel it. There was injustice, lots of it, we saw it as a dull shape coming into focus.” - Michelle Tea

12. “In Paris there are two dens, one for thieves, the other for murderers. The den of thieves is the Stock Exchange; the den of murderers is the Courthouse.” - Petrus Borel

13. “Being a copper I like to see the law win. I'd like to see the flashy well-dressed mugs like Eddie Mars spoiling their manicures in the rock quarry at Folsom, alongside of the poor little slum-bred guys that got knocked over on their first caper amd never had a break since. That's what I'd like. You and me both lived too long to think I'm likely to see it happen. Not in this town, not in any town half this size, in any part of this wide, green and beautiful U.S.A. We just don't run our country that way.” - Raymond Chandler

14. “It takes great courage to open one's heart and mind to the tremendous injustice and suffering in our world.” - Vincent A. Gallagher

15. “Recent evidence confirms that retail prices of essential consumer goods in poor countries are not appreciably lower than in the United States or Western Europe. In fact, with deregulation and "free trade", the cost of living in many Third World cities is now higher than in the United States. My experience in Latin America and Haiti is that the prices of meat, fish and fresh vegetables are about the same as in the United States. Can you imagine eating on less than one dollar a day?” - Vincent A. Gallagher

16. “They were handsome, proper and normal family fathers who built the concentration camps and whipped the prisoners to death. And who was Nietzsche? A narcotized syphilitic.” - Jens Bjørneboe

17. “[T]he vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.” - Lyndon B. Johnson

18. “They had no previous connection whatever with Connemara; but they saw connections where others who should have seen them simply looked the other way.” - Joseph O'Connor

19. “Love and freedom are such hideous words. So many cruelties have been done in their name.” - Joseph O'Connor

20. “Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.” - Voltaire

21. “Injustice in the end produces independence.” - Voltaire

22. “[S]ome score of members of the High Court of Chancery bar ought to be --- as here they are --- mistily engaged in one of the ten thousand stages of an endless cause, tripping one another up on slippery precedents, groping knee-deep in technicalities, running their goat-hair and horse-hair warded heads against walls of words, and making a pretence of equity with serious faces ....” - Charles Dickens

23. “You make someone into a object of – not so much of pity as of weakness, sickness, stupidity, inefectiveness, do you see what I mean? You hit them for their stupidity and their inability to respond, and when you’ve hurt them, marked them, they’re even more sick and ugly, aren’t they? And they’re afraid and cringing too. Oh, I know this isn’t very pleasant, but you did ask.”“Go on” he said.“So you’ve got a frightened, stupid, even disabled person, silenced, made ugly, and what can you do with someone like that, someone who’s unworthy of being treated well? You treat them badly because that’s what they deserve. One thinks of poor little kids that no one love because they’re dirty, sovered in snot and shit, and always screaming. So you beat them because they’re hateful, they’re low, they’re sub-human. That’s all they’re good for, being hit, being reduced even further.” - Ruth Rendell

24. “It's my duty as a human being to be pissed off” - Eric Bogosian

25. “You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation.” - Marian Wright Edelman

26. “The willingness to undertake such action cannot be based on certainties, but on those possibilities glimpsed in a reading of history different from the customary painful recounting of human cruelties. In such a reading we can find not only war but resistance to war, not only injustice but rebellion against injustice, not only selfishness but self-sacrifice, not only silence in the fact of tyranny but defiance, not only callousness but compassion.Human beings show a broad spectrum of qualities, but it is the worst of these that are usually emphasized, and the result, too often, is to dishearten us, diminish our spirit. And yet, historically, that spirit refuses to surrender.” - Howard Zinn

27. “But by this time I was acutely conscious of the gap between law and justice. I knew that the letter of the law was not as important as who held the power in any real-life situation.” - Howard Zinn

28. “There is a power that can be created out of pent-up indignation, courage, and the inspiration of a common cause, and that if enough people put their minds and bodies into that cause, they can win. It is a phenomenon recorded again and against in the history of popular movements against injustice all over the world.” - Howard Zinn

29. “I was astonished, bewildered. This was America, a country where, whatever its faults, people could speak, write, assemble, demonstrate without fear. It was in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. We were a democracy...But I knew it wasn't a dream; there was a painful lump on the side of my head...The state and its police were not neutral referees in a society of contending interests. They were on the side of the rich and powerful. Free speech? Try it and the police will be there with their horses, their clubs, their guns, to stop you.From that moment on, I was no longer a liberal, a believer in the self-correcting character of American democracy. I was a radical, believing that something fundamental was wrong in this country--not just the existence of poverty amidst great wealth, not just the horrible treatment of black people, but something rotten at the root. The situation required not just a new president or new laws, but an uprooting of the old order, the introduction of a new kind of society--cooperative, peaceful, egalitarian.” - Howard Zinn

30. “It’s not unpatriotic to denounce an injustice committed on our behalf, perhaps it’s the most patriotic thing we can do.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

31. “Some things you must always be unable to bear. Some things you must never stop refusing to bear. Injustice and outrage and dishonor and shame. No matter how young you are or how old you have got. Not for kudos and not for cash: your picture in the paper nor money in the bank either. Just refuse to bear them.” - William Faulkner

32. “The courtroom is one instance of the fact that while our society may be liberal and democratic in some large and vague sense, its moving parts, its smaller chambers--its classrooms, its workplaces, its corporate boardrooms, its jails, its military barracks--are flagrantly undemocratic, dominated by one commanding person or a tiny elite of power.” - Howard Zinn

33. “A rule without exceptions is an instrument capable of doing mischief to the innocent and bringing grief -- as well as injustice -- to those who should gain exemptions from the rule's functioning.” - Derrick Bell

34. “Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it. -Andrew Young, author, civil rights activist, US congressman, mayor, and UN ambassador (b. 1932)” - Andrew Young

35. “I am not, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, a good-natured man; that is, many things annoy me besides what interferes with my own ease and interest. I hate a lie; a piece of injustice wounds me to the quick, though nothing but the report of it reach me. Therefore I have made many enemies and few friends; for the public know nothing of well-wishers, and keep a wary eye on those who would reform them.” - William Hazlitt

36. “Nel piccolo mondo in cui i bambini vivono la loro esistenza, chiunque li allevi, non c'è nulla che venga percepito più acutamente dell'ingiustizia. Può darsi che sia solo una piccola ingiustizia quella che il bambino si trova a subire; ma il bambino è piccolo, e il suo mondo è piccolo, e il suo cavallino a dondolo è tante spanne più alto di lui quanto, in proporzione, un cavallo irlandese dalla grossa ossatura. Io, dentro di me, avevo sostenuto un perpetuo conflitto contro l'ingiustizia fin dalla prima infanzia.” - Charles Dickens

37. “What kind of a world do we live in that has room for dog yoga but not for Esperanto?” - Arika Okrent

38. “[W]hen someone finds himself quite unjustly attacked and hated on all sides, there is no need for such a person to feel dismayed by misfortune. See how Fortune, who has harmed many a one, is so inconstant, for God, Who opposes all wrong deeds, raises up those in whom hope dwells.” - Christine de Pizan

39. “I have brought peace to this land, and security," he began."And what of your soul, when you use the cleverness of argument to cloak such acts? Do you think that the peace of a thousand cancels out the unjust death of one single person? It may be desirable, it may win you praise from those who have happily survived you and prospered from your deeds, but you have committed ignoble acts, and have been too proud to own them. I have waited patiently here, hoping that you would come to me, for if you understood, then some of your acts would be mitigated. But instead you send me this manuscript, proud, magisterial, and demonstrating only that you have understood nothing at all.""I returned to public life on your advice, madam," he said stiffly."Yes; I advised it. I said if learning must die it should do so with a friend by its bedside. Not an assassin.” - Iain Pears

40. “Those who plead their cause in the absence of an opponent can invent to their heart's content, can pontificate without taking into account the opposite point of view and keep the best arguments for themselves, for aggressors are always quick to attack those who have no means of defence.” - Christine de Pizan

41. “Look at the orators in our republics; as long as they are poor, both state and people can only praise their uprightness; but once they are fattened on the public funds, they conceive a hatred for justice, plan intrigues against the people and attack the democracy.” - Aristophanes

42. “Their hands are tied not by ropes but by the greed of the intermediaries that the system has generated, who eat up the farmer’s income while it is on its way into his hands.” - Faraaz Kazi

43. “And yet Praecursoris is not punished the same way, only because it is not practical, and he is needed for breeding?” - Naomi Novik

44. “Liberalism, contrary to popular belief, is facing backward in considering the injustice of its ancestors. Conservatism, contrary to popular belief, is facing forward in considering the psychology of its descendants. Definitively, it seems in the modern world that neither side really knows which direction it's facing, and men of the sharpest judgment are simply turned off from picking either of the poisons.” - Criss Jami

45. “Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't need anything else.” - Malcolm X

46. “It's the injustice that I hate, more than anything," he'd said to Smee one night, his eyes red and glassy, slurring his words, his head lolling as he tried to focus. He'd vomited, and then promptly passed out on a bush. "I hate the world that does not work out fair.” - Jodi Lynn Anderson

47. “It is a policeman’s duty to retrieve stolen property and return it to its owners. But when robbery becomes the purpose of the law, and the policeman’s duty becomes, not protection, but the plunder of property - then it is an outlaw who has to become a policeman.” - Ayn Rand

48. “It's an insidious idea, this notion that there is life after death. The promise of a reward in the afterlife has been used as an excuse to deny help to the poor, helpless and oppressed; to explain away human misery rather than deal with it. It is an idea that is used to encourage young men and women to kill themselves, and others, so that they can become martyrs. It allows victims of injustice to be told not to worry because justice will be done in the afterlife. It depresses me to think that so many people on the planet live their lives with this notion. Can we truly fulfill our potential as a species as long as we hold on to, and encourage, the perpetuation of the lie of life after death?” - Alom Shaha

49. “Yes the truth is that men's ambition and their desire to make money are among the most frequent causes of deliberate acts of injustice.” - Aristotle

50. “We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must havethe stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthlessfurnace of this world. To make injustice the onlymeasure of our attention is to praise the Devil.” - Jack Gilbert

51. “I don't know about you, but I only have one life, and I don't want to spend it in a sewer of injustice.” - Wallace Shawn

52. “People often speak of hell, not wanting to go there, avoiding it..etc. I never had that problem because hell is a state of mind. Look around you; rape, murder, wars, hatred, envy...my friend; you're already there!!” - Sandra Chami Kassis

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

54. “Isso é mais uma coisa que aprendi com o tempo, sabe? O bem e o mal não existem! Quer dizer, existir até que existem, mas apenas no contexto de uma pergunta importante: bem ou mal para quem? A questão é que tudo depende do ponto de vista, entende, filho? Pense numa partida de futebol, por exemplo. A vitória é ótima para o time que vence, mas a mesma vitória é amarga para quem perde. Não é?Agora, imagine que jogadores dos dois times sejam entrevistados para falar da partida. Os que ganharam com certeza elogiarão a atuação do seu time, enfatizarão a importância dos pontos obtidos com a vitória. No entanto, o jogador do time que perdeu reclamará dos erros da equipe, das condições desfavoráveis do gramado, descerá o pau na arbitragem e coisa e tal. No fim, para uns o resultado terá sido justo, enquanto outros tenderão a se sentir injustiçados. As coisas são sempre assim. Nossa visão depende sempre do lado em que estamos.” - Camilo Gomes Jr

55. “Beneath that arch of unmoved and eternal lights: some, so remote from this little earth that the learned tell us it is doubtful whether their rays have been yet discovered it, as a point in space where anything is suffered or done: the shadows of the night were broad and black.” - Charles Dickens

56. “It’s hard not to empathize with the mayor’s anger, given the injustices he’d suffered, but righteous anger rarely leads to wise policy.” - Edward L. Glaeser

57. “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” - Robert F. Kennedy

58. “Are all humans human? Or are some more human than others?” - Romeo Dallaire

59. “Joseph’s trials were unjust, inexplicable and heartrending. Yet Joseph knew God, and he knew that God had a plan.” - K. Howard Joslin

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

61. “México es un país de fatalidades dinámicas... un país con demasiadas insatisfacciones sepultadas en el tiempo, largos siglos de pobreza, de injusticia, de sueños soterrados.” - Carlos Fuentes

62. “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

63. “Heri kufuta mashtaka kuliko kumfunga mtuhumiwa asiyekuwa na makosa. Kuonewa kunauma.” - Enock Maregesi

64. “I guess the only time most people think about injustice is when it happens to them.” - Charles Bukowski

65. “I want my children to know what I stood for. I want to be remembered as a person who fought injustice. Suzanne Ahn” - Suzanne Ahn

66. “How close we can approach the land of happiness with the heavy shackles on our feet of injustice permeated deeply into every corner?” - Mehmet Murat ildan

67. “Kindness is seen as weakness and intelligence worshiped, even when that intelligence allows unfathomable injustice and suffering to occur under its smart watch.” - Bryant McGill

68. “I have no fear of after death life! Even if there is such thing, it is God who should be worried. I am sure I have good reasons to present but I am not sure he might have good excuses for his injustice.” - M.F.Moonzajer

69. “The world is not fair, and often fools, cowards, liars and the selfish hide in high places. (p 57)” - Bryant McGill