Quotes about justice

“You had to play the big scene,” he said coldly. “Stand on your rights, talk about the law. How ingenuous can a man get, Marlowe? A man like you who is supposed to know his way around. The law isn’t justice. It’s a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be.”

He adjudicated the case in a manner I still find perplexing, but which must have been equitable, since it pleased no one.

“I am not skilled at inventing punishments.”

“Nor are they to my taste. I enjoy creating conditions of justice. All too often, however, I must ordain harsh penalties. It is the disagreeable side to my work. The preferences of the criminal, of course, can’t be considered; as often as not, he will opt for leniency even no punishment whatever.”

Justice, a human invention, is as protean as the race itself, and varies from canton to canton. The traveler must be wary lest he contravene some unfamiliar local ordinance.

You can’t convict or even accuse a man of criminal activity just because he looks peculiar; otherwise, three-quarters of us would be in jail.

The world is a raft sailing through space with, potentially, plenty of provisions for everybody; the idea that we must all cooperate and see to it that everyone does his fair share of the work and gets his fair share of the provisions seems so blatantly obvious that one would say that no one could possibly fail to accept it unless he had some corrupt motive for clinging to the present system.

For the Lawes of Nature (as Justice, Equity, Modesty, Mercy, and (in summe)doing to others, as wee would be done to,) of themselves, without the terrour of some Power, to cause them to be observed, are contrary to our naturall Passions, that carry us to Partiality, Pride, Revenge, and the like. And Covenants, without the Sword, are but Words, and of no strength to secure a man at all.

"And seeing every man is presumed to do all things in order to his own benefit, no man is a fit Arbitrator in his own cause:"

It is ugly to be punishable, but there is no glory in punishing. Hence the double system of protection that justice has set up between itself and the punishment it imposes.

“This is today’s puzzle,” he said. “If the act of denial can be taken as proof of the crime, how can an innocent man defend himself?”

The tithingmen caught him by the arms. “Come along now, Mr. Emerson, and don’t go trying any philosophy on us.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Waldo. “Philosophy would be wasted against such sturdy-headed men as you.”

“Glad you know it,” said the tithingman proudly. “Wouldn’t want you thinking we weren’t true Christians.”

Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent.

I am not the law, but I represent justice so far as my feeble powers go.