Quotes About Justice

True peace must be anchored in justice and an unwavering commitment to universal rights for all humans, regardless of ethnicity, religion, gender, national origin or any other identity attribute.

the cycle of reprisal and counter reprisal that had characterized their national history had to be broken and that the only way to do this was to go beyond retributive justice to restorative justice, to move on to forgiveness, because without it there was no future.

We shall be free only together, black and white. We shall survive only together, black and white. We can be human only together, black and white.

One of the most blasphemous consequences of injustice, especially racist injustice, is that it can make a child of God doubt that he or she is a child of God.

in the sentiment of Mahatma Gandhi, when we practice the law of an eye for an eye, we all end up blind.

But just as we do not forgive for others, we also do not forgive for God.

I am a strong supporter of the recent extradition proceedings against General Pinochet. It would be quite intolerable that the perpetrator should decide not only whether he should get amnesty but that no one else should have the right to question the grounds on which he had so granted himself amnesty and for what offense.

I would love to know who killed my father. So would my brother." Her next words stunned me and left me breathless. "We want to forgive them. We want to forgive, but we don't know who to forgive.

It is small comfort to a mouse, if an elephant is standing on its tail, to say 'I am impartial.' In this instance, you are really supporting the elephant in its cruelty.

The miracle was the result of the negotiated settlement. There would have been no negotiated settlement and so no new democratic South Africa had the negotiators on one side insisted that all perpetrators be brought to trial. While the Allies could pack up and go home after Nuremberg, we in South Africa had to live with one another.

If you are neutral in a situation of injustice you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

we choose to either walk the path of revenge and be bound to suffering, or take the path of forgiveness and be freed into healing.

The process we embarked on through the TRC was, as all real growth proves to be, astoundingly painful and profoundly beautiful.

What a profound scientific discovery that blacks, Coloreds (usually people of mixed race), and Indians were in fact human beings, who had the same concerns and anxieties and aspirations. They wanted a decent home, a good job, a safe environment for their families, good schools for their children, and almost none wanted to drive the whites into the sea. They just wanted their place in the sun. Everywhere else elections are

The white person entered the voting booth burdened by the load of guilt for having enjoyed the fruits of oppression and injustice. He emerged as somebody new. He too cried out, "The burden has been lifted from my shoulders, I am free, transfigured, made into a new person." He walked tall, with head held high and shoulders set square and straight. White people found that freedom

The rubric of proportionality had to be observed—that the means were proportional to the objective.

To be impartial... is indeed to have taken sides already... with the status quo.

he would urge his compatriots to work for and which would form part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission he was going to appoint to deal with our country's past. This man, who had been vilified and

Maximus spoke in a clear, proud voice. My name is Maximus Decimus Meridas, Commander of the Army of the North, gerneral of the Western Armies, loyal servant to the true Emperor, Marcus Aurelius. The Colosseum was completely silent. Then he turned to Commodus and spoke more quietly. I am father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife, and I will punish their killer, in this life or the next. (S. 48)

While the Lord might insist that vengeance was His, no male Highlander of my acquaintance had ever thought it right that the Lord should be left to handle such things without assistance.

I gave you justice, it said, as I was taught it. And I gave you mercy , too, so far as I could. While I could not spare you pain and humiliation, I make you a gift of my own pains and humiliations, that yours might be easier to bear.

Do ye dare to draw arms against the justice of God? snapped the tubby little judge. Jamie drew the sword completely, with a flash of steel, then thrust it point-first into the ground, leaving the hilt quivering with the force of the blow. I draw it in defense of this women, and the truth, he said If any here be against those two they'll answer to me, and then God, in that order.

The law's a necessary evil--we canna be doing without it--but do ye not think it a poor substitute for conscience?

You'd forgive me for Claire - but not for killing your . . . men. He glanced at the two Craddocks, spotty as a pair of raisin puddings and - Grey's look implied - likely no brighter.