Quotes About Justice

Most liberties have been won by people who broke the law.

Power to the peaceful!

Sirius Black

Rogers held that there is not one fact or piece of data that will ever make war (or even preparing for war) morally permissible.

Michael G. Santos

Michael G. Santos

Michael G. Santos

In fundamental respects, the Constitution does not mean what it says. It means what the Supreme Court says it means. Or, more particularly, it means what five Supreme Court justices say it means at any particular time.

No law or prior pledge can insure loyalty if the cause itself becomes unworthy in the mind and conscience of the individual. In such cases, dishonoring the oath of allegiance may be a nobler course of action.

Perhaps one of the lessons of any nation's history is that the people are indeed responsible for the sins of the fathers; they are not guilty, but responsible for setting right the wrongs done in the past.

Campaign donors buy a get out of jail pass... essentially, fraud has been decriminalized.

John Locke's guiding axiom was that all men have a natural right to the fruits of their labor. A corollary to this logic was that landlords have a right only to what they themselves produce, not to exploit and appropriate the labor of their tenants:

By salvation I mean, not barely (according to the vulgar notion) deliverance from hell, or going to heaven, but a present deliverance from sin, a restoration of the soul to its primitive health, its original purity; a recovery of the divine nature; the renewal of our souls after the image of God in righteousness and true holiness, in justice, mercy, and truth.29

Putting aside the issue of how compelling her need for money may have been, and how significant her understanding of the consequences, we suggest that her consent is irrelevant. There are, in a civilized society, some things that money cannot buy.41

If you look closely at the price-gouging debate, you'll notice that the arguments for and against price-gouging laws revolve around three ideas: maximizing welfare, respecting freedom, and promoting virtue.

The debate over the priority of the right over the good is ultimately a debate about the meaning of human freedom.

prison cell upgrade: $82 per night.

Those who are greatest in civic excellence—not the wealthiest, or the most numerous, or the most handsome—are the ones who merit the greatest share of political recognition and influence.

Ungenerous to the losers and oppressive to the winners, merit becomes a tyrant.

the idea that the right way of valuing goods and social practices depends on the purposes and ends those practices serve.

If moral reflection consists in seeking a fit between the judgments we make and the principles we affirm, how can such reflection lead us to justice, or moral truth?

then Rawls may have a point. Even effort can't be the basis of moral desert. The claim that people deserve the rewards that come from effort and hard work is questionable for a further reason: although proponents of meritocracy often invoke the virtues of effort, they don't really believe that effort alone should be the basis of income and wealth.

ancient theories of justice start with virtue, while modern theories start with freedom. And

For Aristotle, politics is about something higher. It's about learning how to live a good life.