41 Quotes About Justice and Fairness

Justice does not always equate to fairness. These quotes about justice and fairness capture some of the distinct qualities you will find in these two cases.

“A rule isn’t unfair if it applies to everyone.”

“Courage is of no value unless accompanied by justice; yet if all men became just, there would be no need for courage.”

“Give good and get good.”

“If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.”

“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.”

“In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.”

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

“Injustice is relatively easy to bear; it is justice that hurts.”

“Justice consists not in being neutral between right and wrong, but in finding out the right and upholding it, wherever found, against the wrong.”

“Justice has nothing to do with what goes on in a courtroom; Justice is what comes out of a courtroom.”

“Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens”

“Justice is a contract of expediency, entered upon to prevent men harming or being harmed.”

“Justice is always violent to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes.”

“Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity.”

“Justice is the constant and perpetual will to allot to every man his due.”

“Justice is the means by which established injustices are sanctioned.”

“Justice is the tolerable accommodation of the conflicting interests of society, and I don’t believe there is any royal road to attain such accommodation concretely.”

“Justice requires that to lawfully constituted Authority there be given that respect and obedience which is its due; that the laws which are made shall be in wise conformity with the common good; and that, as a matter of conscience all men shall render obedience to these laws.”

“Justice should remove the bandage from her eyes long enough to distinguish between the vicious and the unfortunate.”

“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.”

“Justice? — You get justice in the next world. In this one you have the law.”

“Law in origin was merely a codification of the power of dominant groups, and did not aim at anything that to a modern man would appear to be justice.”

“Laws catch flies but let hornets go free.”

“Little thieves are hanged but great ones escape.”

“Men often mistake killing and revenge for justice. They seldom have the stomach for justice.”

“Quarrels never could last long, if on one side only lay the wrong.”

“Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence kills what it intends to create.”

“The best safeguard against fascism is to establish social justice to the maximum extent possible.”

“The dead cannot cry out for justice. It is a duty of the living to do so for them.”

“The deceitful have no friends.”

“The end doesn’t justify the means.”

“The failure to invest in civil justice is directly related to the increase in criminal disorder. The more people feel there is injustice the more it becomes part of their psyche.”

“The love of justice is, in most men, nothing more than the fear of suffering injustice”

“The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.”

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”

“This thing that men call justice, this blind snake that strikes men down in the dark, mindless with fury, keep your hand back from it, pass by in silence.”

“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.”

“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”

“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”

“Where there are too many policemen, there is no liberty. Where there are too many soldiers, there is no peace. Where there are too many lawyers, there is no justice.”

“You know, the courts may not be working any more, but as long as everyone is videotaping everyone else, justice will be done.”

In the face of injustice it can seem difficult to speak of what is fair and what is just. Understanding where the line lays and where you fall will keep you on the right track.