Quotes About Justice

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

People see police officers and think they're such bad people. We have some who can be some bad people. But we have some great ones out there, that are here to protect us.

Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.

It is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. So we don't. Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color 'criminals' and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind.

Collegiality is crucial to the success of our mission. We could not do the job the Constitution assigns to us if we didn't - to use one of Justice Antonin Scalia's favorite expressions - 'Get over it!'

Of what use are all the codes in the world, if by means of confidential reports, if for trifling reasons, if through anonymous traitors any honest citizen may be exiled or banished without a hearing, without a trial?

In South Africa, we could not have achieved our freedom and just peace without the help of people around the world, who through the use of non-violent means, such as boycotts and divestment, encouraged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse decades-long support for the Apartheid regime.

Power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent.

We're not a racist organization, because we understand that racism is an excuse used for capitalism, and we know that racism is just - it's a byproduct of capitalism.

The absolute pacifist is a bad citizen; times come when force must be used to uphold right, justice and ideals.

I used to say to my bubbe, 'Bubbe, is this story true?' And she'd say, 'Of course it's true! But it may not have happened.' What my bubbe was saying is profound: All stories are true. The truth is the journey you take through it - did it make you laugh, cry, seek and want justice? Then it's true.

Some may remember, if you have good memories, that there used to be a concept in Anglo-American law called a presumption of innocence, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Now that's so deep in history that there's no point even bringing it up, but it did once exist.

Society during the last hundred years has been alternately perplexed and encouraged respecting the two great questions: how shall the criminal and pauper be disposed of in order to reduce crime and reform the criminal on the one hand and, on the other, to diminish pauperism and restore the pauper to useful citizenship?

The criminal law needs to be improved to meet new forms of crime, but to denounce financial devices which are useful and legitimate because use is made of them for fraud, is ridiculous and unworthy of the age in which we live.

I believe indeterminate sentencing can be extremely useful, but I also believe that any such system should always take into consideration the special knowledge as to the facts in a case which only the trial judge possesses.

It's one thing to recognize that the gap between the rich and everybody else is growing like a cancer; it's another thing to come up with useful solutions.

I think it's useful to recall that a lot of these statutes like 'disrupting the classroom' or 'disturbing the peace' have long been historically used to oppress and criminalize black people.

There is no doubt that dissents can serve a useful role by explaining when a justice thinks the majority has gone off the deep end. But unanimity also sends its own powerful message - one that might be eclipsed in the headlines by a sensational dissent but could ultimately have a greater impact.

Gigantic sums are now required to maintain prisons and insane asylums and protect the public against gangsters and lunatics. Why do we preserve these useless and harmful beings? The abnormal prevent development of the normal.

Accusations are useless.

Casual drug users should be taken out and shot.

My stance has always been that there's no place in our sport for drug users. I've always said it's a ban for life if you come up positive. I stand by that.

I think God has some mechanism that he uses to punish those that make mistakes.

We need to statutize what is permissible and what is not permissible. If a law enforcement agent uses a clearly unapproved technique like the knee that was on the neck of George Floyd for over eight minutes, no law enforcement agent thinks that that's right and that officer should be held accountable.