Law and Justice Quotes
Top 20 Law and Justice Quotes
No 1 (Best quote!)
In civilized life, law floats in a sea of ethics.
- Earl Warren (1891–1974), American judge, pictured right.
No 2
An unjust law is no law at all.
- St. Augustine (354-430),
Algerian philosopher, pictured right.
The American anti-slavery campaigner, William Lloyd Garrison (1805-79), pictured right,
agrees:
That which is not just is not law
No 3
The one place a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any colour of the rainbow.
(Atticus Finch in the 1960 novel To Kill a
Mockingbird).
- Harper Lee (1926- ), American writer, pictured right.
Atticus said something similar in the 1962
film version:
In our courts all men are created equal
No 4
Justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done.
- Gordon Hewart (1870–1943), British lawyer and politician, pictured right.
No 5
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,
- Martin Luther King (1929–68), American civil
rights leader, pictured right
No 6
There is nothing so finely perceived, and so finely felt, as injustice,
(Pip in Great
Expectations)
- Charles Dickens (1812-70), pictured
right, English writer.
Dickens also wrote in Bleak House:
Injustice breeds injustice.
No 7
The good of the people is the chief law.
- Cicero (106–43 BC), Roman
politician and philosopher, pictured right.
Cicero also says:
Let the punishment match the offence
No 8
Let justice be done, though the heavens may fall,
- family motto of James Horton (1878-1973), judge in the Scottsboro Boys rape case, pictured right.
No 9
Prejudice always obscures the truth.,
- Juror 8 (Henry Fonda) in the 1957 film Twelve Angry Men, pictured right.
No 10
Justice is truth in action.
- Benjamin Disraeli (1804–81), British prime
minister, pictured right.
No 11
Justice delayed is justice denied.
- William Gladstone (1809-1898)
British prime minister, pictured right.
No 12
Punishment is not for revenge, but to lessen crime and reform the criminal.
- Elizabeth Fry (1780–1845), English prison reformer, pictured right.
No 13
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
(from the 1764 poem The Traveller)
- Oliver Goldsmith (1730-74), pictured right, Irish writer.
No 14
Liberties…depend on the silence of the law.
(from the 1651 book Leviathan)
- Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679),
pictured right, English philosopher.
No 15
Everywhere there is the one principle of justice which is the interest of the stronger.
- Plato (427-347 BC), Greek philosopher,
pictured right.
So Joseph Heller (1923-99), the American writer, pictured right, says in the 1961 novel
Catch-22:
Justice is a knee in the gut
No 16
If the law supposes that ... the law is an ass - an idiot.
(Mr. Bumble in Oliver Twist)
- Charles Dickens (1812-70), pictured
right, English writer
No 17
Laws are only observed with the consent of the individuals and a moral change still depends on the
individual.
- Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962),
American human rights campaigner, pictured right.
No 18
Law and morality are the totality of ties which bind each of us to society.
- Émile Durkheim (1858-1917), French sociologist, pictured
right.
No 19
The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself.
(from Bleak House)
- Charles Dickens (1812-70), pictured
right, English writer
No 20
In England, justice is open to all - like the Ritz Hotel,
- James Mathew (1830–1908), Irish judge, pictured right.
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