Quotes About Justice

We've had a great change. Dr King saw to that. I was so grateful to see the 'colored only' signs come off the water fountains and bathrooms in the south. But the struggle lives on.

It was natural to see the struggle for dignity for black people in America as a sister struggle of the Jewish struggle. So growing up, it was always a part of my breakfast cereal to think of myself as someone who was part of a larger struggle.

Like Gandhi, my husband had struggled with the issue of materialism.

This nation has always struggled with how it was going to deal with poor people and people of color. Every few years you will see some great change in the way that they approach this. We've had the war on poverty that never really got into waging a real war on poverty.

During the 10 years I worked as a prosecutor, I always struggled with what to do with someone who was clearly mentally ill and committed a horrific crime.

I want to start by making a pledge, a pledge to those from the Windrush generation who have been in this country for decades and yet have struggled to navigate through the immigration system: This never should have been the case, and I will do whatever it takes to put it right.

The working classes in every country only learn to fight in the course of their struggles.

I came out even with all the struggles I endured on Rikers Island.

Democracy as a promise means that society can never be just enough and that the self-reflection and struggles that enable all members of the community to participate in the decisions and institutions that shape their lives must be continually debated, safeguarded, and preserved at all costs.

Some of the most moving experiences I've had are just in black churches in the South, during the Civil Rights Movement, where people were getting beaten, killed, really struggling for the most elementary rights.

Right here in New York, people are struggling in working conditions not much safer or fairer than the sweatshops of 1911.

They might object to some of my opinions, but they don't object to my behavior as a judge.

It's not simply to say, 'My colleagues are wrong, and I would do it this way,' but the greatest dissents do become court opinions.

What I've learned over the years... judges are conscientious... not like lawyers, who give opinions.

I am a firm believer in open justice, and an opponent of closed justice in any normal circumstances. But I am also an opponent of legal purism, and have no time for institutionalised mythmaking - whether from the authoritarian right or the liberal left.

I don't want advantages for my team. I want the same rest as our opponents. It's very difficult to do this? I don't think so.

I think that everybody should have the same opportunities.

Public action should seek to expand the set of opportunities of those who have the least voice and fewest resources and capabilities.

Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity.

Everyone is born equally capable but lacks equal opportunity.

The liberal ideal is that everyone should have fair access and fair opportunity. This is not equality of result. It's equality of opportunity. There's a fundamental difference.

Access to equal opportunity should not be constrained by zip-code.

You can't have a competitive, egalitarian meritocracy if only some of your citizens have the opportunity for a good education.

All I did was ask for rights. I didn't attack anyone. I didn't harass anyone. I didn't oppose the system or the country or the authority. All I said is, 'Why can't I drive?'