Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Justice
Justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is therefore always represented as blind.
Addison—The Guardian. No. 99.
There is no virtue so truly great and godlike as justice.
Addison—The Guardian. No. 99.
Justice is that virtue of the soul which is distributive according to desert.
Aristotle—Metaphysics. On the Virtues and Vices. Justice.
God’s justice, tardy though it prove perchance,
Rests never on the track until it reach
Delinquency.
Robert Browning—Ceuciaja.
Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.
Burke—Reflections on the Revolution in France.
It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest. I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.
Burke—Speech on Conciliation with America. Works. Vol. II. P. 136.
So justice while she winks at crimes,
Stumbles on innocence sometimes.
Butler—Hudibras. Canto II. Pt. I. L. 1,177.
Amongst the sons of men how few are known
Who dare be just to merit not their own.
Churchill—Epistle to Hogarth. L. 1.
Justitia suum cuique distribuit.
Justice renders to every one his due.
Cicero—De Legibus. I. 15.
Justitia nihil exprimit præmii, nihil pretii: per se igitur expetitur.
Justice extorts no reward, no kind of price: she is sought, therefore, for her own sake.
Cicero—De Legibus. I. 18.
Meminerimus etiam adversus infimos justitiam esse servandam.
Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.
Cicero—De Natura Deorum. III. 15.
Summum jus, summa injuria.
Extreme justice is extreme injustice.
Cicero—De Officiis. I. 10. Also in De Republica. V. Ch. III. Same idea in Aristotle—Ethics. V. 14. Terence—Heauton timorumenos. Act IV. Sc. 5. 48. Columella—De Re Rustica. Bk. I. Ch. VII. (Ed. Bipont, 1787.) Racine—La Thébaide. Act IV. Sc. 3. Les Frères Ennemis. IV. 3.
Fundamenta justitiæ sunt, ut ne cui noceatur, deinde ut communi utilitati serviatur.
The foundations of justice are that no one shall suffer wrong; then, that the public good be promoted.
Cicero—De Officiis. I. 10.
Observantior æqui
Fit populus, nec ferre negat, cum viderit ipsum
Auctorem parere sibi.
The people become more observant of justice, and do not refuse to submit to the laws when they see them obeyed by their enactor.
Claudianus—De Quarto Consulatu Honorii Augusti Panegyris. CCXCVII.
Cima di giudizio non s’avvalla.
Justice does not descend from its pinnacle.
Dante—Purgatorio. VI. 37.
Justice is truth in action.
Benj. Disraeli—Speech, Feb. 11, 1851.
Whoever fights, whoever falls,
Justice conquers evermore.
Emerson—Voluntaries.
Justice without wisdom is impossible.
Froude—Short Studies on Great Subjects. Party Politics.
That which is unjust can really profit no one; that which is just can really harm no one.
Henry George—The Land Question. Ch. XIV.
Dilexi justitiam et odi iniquitatem, propterea morior in exilio.
I have loved justice and hated iniquity; and therefore I die in exile.
Pope Gregory VII. (Hildebrand.) Bowden’s Life of Gregory VII. Vol. II. Bk. III. Ch. XX.
The spirits of just men made perfect.
Hebrews. XII. 23.
Raro antecedentem scelestum
Deseruit pede pœna claudo.
Justice, though moving with tardy pace, has seldom failed to overtake the wicked in their flight.
Horace—Carmina. III. 2. 31.
L’amour de la justice n’est, en la plupart des hommes, que la crainte de souffrir l’injustice.
The love of justice is, in most men, nothing more than the fear of suffering injustice.
La Rochefoucauld—Maximes.
Man is unjust, but God is just; and finally justice
Triumphs.
Longfellow—Evangeline. Pt. I. 3. L. 31.
Arma tenenti
Omnia dat qui justa negat.
He who refuses what is just, gives up everything to him who is armed.
Lucan—Pharsalia. I. 348.
But the sunshine aye shall light the sky,
As round and round we run;
And the Truth shall ever come uppermost,
And Justice shall be done.
Charles Mackay—Eternal Justice. St. 4.
I’m armed with more than complete steel,—
The justice of my quarrel.
Marlowe—Lust’s Dominion. Act III. Sc. 4.
Yet I shall temper so
Justice with mercy, as may illustrate most
Them fully satisfied, and thee appease.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. X. L. 77.
Just are the ways of God,
And justifiable to men.
Milton—Samson Agonistes. L. 293.
Prompt sense of equity! to thee belongs
The swift redress of unexamined wrongs!
Eager to serve, the cause perhaps untried,
But always apt to choose the suffering side!
Hannah More—Sensibility. L. 243.
A just man is not one who does no ill,
But he, who with the power, has not the will.
Philemon—Sententiæ. II.
The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
Proverbs. IV. 18.
Render therefore to all their dues.
Romans. XIII. 7.
Qui statuit aliquid, parte inaudita altera,
Aequum licet statuerit, haud æquus fuerit.
He who decides a case without hearing the other side, though he decide justly, cannot be considered just.
Seneca—Medea. CXCIX.
There is more owing her than is paid; and more shall be paid her than she’ll demand.
All’s Well That Ends Well. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 107.
Use every man after his desert, and who should
’Scape whipping!
Hamlet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 554.
Thrice is he arm’d that hath his quarrel just,
And he but naked, though lock’d up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
Henry VI. Pt. II. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 232.
This shows you are above
Your justicers; that these our nether crimes
So speedily can venge!
King Lear. Act IV. Sc. 2. L. 78.
This even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison’d chalice
To our own lips.
Macbeth. Act I. Sc. 7. L. 9.
I show it most of all when I show justice;
For then I pity those I do not know,
Which a dismiss’d offence would after gall;
And do him right that, answering one foul wrong,
Lives not to act another.
Measure for Measure. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 99.
This bond is forfeit;
And lawfully by this the Jew may claim
A pound of flesh.
Merchant of Venice. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 230.
Thyself shalt see the act:
For, as thou urgest justice, be assur’d
Thou shalt have justice more than thou desir’st.
Merchant of Venice. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 315.
He shall have merely justice and his bond.
Merchant of Venice. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 339.
O, I were damn’d beneath all depth in hell,
But that I did proceed upon just grounds
To this extremity.
Othello. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 137.
I have done the state some service, and they know’t;
No more of that, I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice.
Othello. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 339.
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just;
And four times he who gets his fist in fust.
Accredited to Henry Wheeler Shaw. (Josh Billings.)
Truth is its [justice’s] handmaid, freedom is its child, peace is 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—Lady Holland’s Memoir. Vol. I. P. 29.
There is a point at which even justice does injury.
Sophocles—Electra.
A sense of justice is a noble fancy.
Tegner—Frithjof’s Saga. Canto VIII.
Suo sibi gladio hunc jugulo.
With his own sword do I stab this man
Terence—Adelphi. V. 8. 35.
On ne peut être juste si on n’est pas humain.
One can not be just if one is not humane.
Vauvenargues—Réflexions. XXVIII.
Discite justitiam moniti et non temnere divos.
Being admonished, learn justice and despise not the gods.
Vergil—Æneid. VI. 620.
Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum.
Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.
William Watson—Decacordon of Ten Quodlibeticall Questions. (1602). Prynne—Fresh Discovery of Prodigious New Wandering-Blazing Stars. Sec. ed. London, 1646. Ward—Simple Cobbler of Aggawam in America. (1647). Motto of the Emperor Ferdinand. Duke of Richmond—Speech before the House of Lords. Jan. 31, 1642. See Parliamentary History. Vol. X. P. 28. Idea in Theognis V. 869. In Anthologia Lyrica. 1868 ed. P. 72. Terence—Heut. IV, III, 41. Varro—Ap. Nonn. Ch. IX. 7. Horace—Carmina. III, III, 8. Fiat Justitia et ruat Mundus.—Egerton Papers (1552). P. 25. Camden Society. (1840). Aikin—Court and Times of James I. Vol. II. P. 500. (1625).
Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth.
Daniel Webster—On Mr. Justice Story. (1845).