Quotes About Justice

Political Liberty consists in the power of doing whatever does not injure another. The exercise of the natural rights of every [human], has no other limits than those which are necessary to secure to every other [human] the free exercise of the same rights.

Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.

But such is the irresistable nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants is the liberty of appearing.

It is the object only of war that makes it honorable. And if there was ever a just war since the world began, it is this in which America is now engaged.

We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in.

A bad cause will ever be supported by bad means and bad men.

There are matters in the Bible, said to be done by the express commandment of God, that are shocking to humanity and to every idea we have of moral justice.

I believe in one God and no more, and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy.

Such is the irresistible nature of truth that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.

For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have the right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others forever, and tho' himself might deserve some decent degree of honours of his cotemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them.

Let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarcy, that in America the law is King. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.

When it shall be said in any country in the world my poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want; the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am a friend of its happiness: When these things can be said, there may that country boast its Constitution and its Government

Man did not enter society to be worse off, or to have fewer rights, but rather to have those rights better secured

But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.

The cause of America is in great measure the cause of all mankind.

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of humans; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy.

If I owe a person money, and cannot pay him, and he threatens to put me in prison, another person can take the debt upon himself, and pay it for me. But if I have committed a crime, every circumstance of the case is changed. Moral justice cannot take the innocent for the guilty even if the innocent would offer itself. To suppose justice to do this, is to destroy the principle of its existence, which is the thing itself. It is then no longer justice. It is indiscriminate revenge.

Everything that is right or reasonable pleads for separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, 'tis time to part.

Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions. Expedience and right are different things.

He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it. The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is Reason.

Man did not enter into society to become worse than he was before, nor to have fewer rights than he had before, but to have those rights better secured.

for as we are never in a proper condition of doing justice to others, while we continue under the influence of some leading partiality, so neither are we capable of doing it to ourselves while we remain fettered by any obstinate prejudice. And as a man, who is attached to a prostitute, is unfitted to choose or judge a wife, so any prepossession in favour of a rotten constitution of government will disable us from discerning a good one.

let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law OUGHT to be King; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony, be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is.

Kill the king but spare the man.