Justice and Equality

Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.

The worst form of injustice is pretended justice.

I would uphold the law if for no other reason but to protect myself.

The ultimate solution to the race problem lies in the willingness of men to obey the unenforceable.

That old law about “an eye for an eye” leaves everybody blind.

Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.

It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.

One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.

To do injustice is more disgraceful than to suffer it.

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

The defect of equality is that we desire it only with our superiors.

We are in bondage to the law in order that we may be free.

Patriotism is not so much protecting the land of our fathers as preserving the land of our children.

Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.

The time is always right to do what is right.

When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.

The State which we have founded must possess the four cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, discipline and justice ... Justice is the principle which has in fact been followed throughout, the principle of one man one job, of minding ones own business, in the sense of doing the job for which one is naturally fitted and not interfering with other people.

No one punishes the evil-doer under the notion, or for the reason, that he has done wrong. Only the unreasonable fury of a beast acts in that way. But he who desires to inflict rational punishment does not retaliate for a past wrong, for that which is done cannot be undone, but he has regard to the future, and is desirous that the man who is punished, and he who sees him punished, may be deterred from doing wrong again.

No knowledge considers or prescribes for the advantage of the stronger, but for that of the weaker, which it rules

Mankind censure injustice fearing that they may be the victims of it, and not because they shrink from committing it.

Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil.

Justice, although it resembles a mirage, is really concerned with internal rather than external activity, with the true self and its business.

Justice will only exist where those not affected by injustice are filled with the same amount of indignation as those offended.

It is by justice, that we can authenticate a man's value or nullity, the absence of justice, is the absence of what makes him man.