Passages about justice

The first man who enclosed a piece of ground and took it into his head to say, this is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society.

Man is naturally good, and it is our institutions alone that have made him bad.

The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being.

I am very conscious that I am not wise at all; what then does the god mean?

I proclaim that justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger.

Glaucon imagines a ring that makes its wearer invisible and asks whether any man, just or unjust, would keep his hands off what he wanted.

The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is any where directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.

Nothing in the world, or even out of it, can possibly be conceived which could be called good without qualification except a good will.

Act only according to that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

Among the new objects that drew my attention during my stay in the United States, none struck me more forcibly than the equality of conditions.

A power rises above the citizens, absolute, detailed, regular, provident and mild. It would be like a father's authority if, like that, its object were to prepare men for manhood, but it seeks instead to keep them permanently in childhood.

Many things are terrible and wonderful, and nothing is more terrible and wonderful than man.

I was not born to share in hatred, but to share in love.

The real cause I consider to be the one which was formally most kept out of sight. The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon, made war inevitable.

For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb.

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.

For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.

The existence of God can be proved in five ways.

Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.

The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.

Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property.

We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as an immense accumulation of commodities, its unit being a single commodity.

A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood. Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.

Zeus, who sets mortals on the way to understanding, has ordained the fixed law that wisdom comes by suffering.

The watchman on the roof says he has been lying there a year like a dog, learning the stars by heart, and that he would speak if the house could bear it, but an ox stands on his tongue.

Then we ought not to retaliate or render evil for evil to any one, whatever evil we may have suffered from him.

Socrates says that they should follow not the opinion of the many about what is just but the opinion of the one who understands it, as a man in training listens to his trainer rather than to the crowd.

Man is by nature a political animal.

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.

Two loves, then, have made two cities.

Remove justice, and what is a kingdom but a great band of robbers?

Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.

All hope abandon, ye who enter in!

Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.

Whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body; which means nothing other than that he will be forced to be free.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

It's not God that I don't accept, Alyosha, I only most respectfully return Him the ticket.

Why hast Thou come now to hinder us?

Of all creatures that have breath and understanding, we women are the most wretched.

I would rather stand three times in the line of battle than give birth once.

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; but I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.

Faith is precisely this paradox, that the single individual is higher than the universal.

He who loved himself became great by himself, and he who loved other men became great by his devotion, but he who loved God became greater than all.

You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter.

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line.

It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.

And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM.

Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.

But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding?

A great ox stands upon my tongue.

Zeus, who sets mortals on the road to understanding, who made it law that by suffering they shall learn.

The mother is not the parent of what is called her child, but the nurse of the newly sown seed. The one who mounts is the parent.

This is my ruling: a tie in the votes acquits the man.

Pylades, what shall I do? Am I to feel shame at killing my mother?

Have pity, child, on this breast, where many times you drowsed and sucked the milk that made you.

I would rather that my lyre were out of tune and discordant, and that the chorus I led should be, and that most men should disagree with me, than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself and contradict myself.

Nature herself shows that it is just for the better man to have more than the worse, and the more powerful than the less.

The foundation of justice is good faith, that is, steadiness and truthfulness in what is said and agreed.

There are two ways of settling a dispute: by discussion and by force. Since the first is proper to man and the second to beasts, we should resort to the second only when the first is not available.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

My soul doth magnify the Lord. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.

Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled.

Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.

All hope abandon, ye who enter in.

Your sheep, that were wont to be so meek and tame and so small eaters, now, as I hear say, be become so great devourers and so wild, that they eat up and swallow down the very men themselves.

For what justice is this, that a rich goldsmith or an usurer should have a pleasant and wealthy living, and in the meantime a poor labourer, a carter, a smith, without whom no commonwealth could continue, should get so hard and poor a living?

Heresy is a spiritual matter which no iron can strike, no fire burn, no water drown.

The soul is not under the authority of Caesar; he can neither teach nor guide it, neither kill it nor give it life, neither bind it nor loose it.

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, this earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, this other Eden, demi-paradise.

Not all the water in the rough rude sea can wash the balm off from an anointed king.

Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question.

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD. And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

Man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?

I know that by nature you are not the sort to say such things or to devise mischief. But the prize of victory is sweet to win, so bring yourself to do it, and we shall be shown to be just another time.

Everything becomes disgust when a man abandons his own nature and does what does not befit him.

Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?

I did not bid you tell me one or two of the many pious actions but that form itself that makes all pious actions pious.

Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.

Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible.

God: there is no god but Him, the Ever Living, the Ever Watchful. Neither slumber nor sleep overtakes Him. All that is in the heavens and in the earth belongs to Him.

There is no compulsion in religion: true guidance has become distinct from error.

A Gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine, / Ycladd in mightie armes and silver shielde, / Wherein old dints of deepe woundes did remaine, / The cruell markes of many a bloody fielde.

Sleepe after toyle, port after stormie seas, / Ease after warre, death after life does greatly please.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; / I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

I have made this letter longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.

You are very fortunate, Father, to be able to say that, for otherwise I should have thought it a great sin.

Political liberty is not the power of doing what we please. Liberty can consist only in the power of doing what we ought to will, and in not being constrained to do what we ought not to will.

Constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go. To prevent this abuse, it is necessary from the very nature of things that power should be a check to power.

The most pressing interest of the ruler, as also his most indispensable duty, is therefore to watch over the observation of the laws of which he is the minister and on which his whole authority is founded.

You need me, for I am rich and you are poor. Let us therefore make an agreement: I will permit you to have the honour of serving me, on condition that you give me what little you have left for the trouble I shall take in commanding you.

Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.

The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defence, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare.

Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.

Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights.

What is rational is actual; and what is actual is rational.

The owl of Minerva begins its flight only with the onset of dusk.

If you teach that nigger how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave.

You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.

If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think and feel.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

We can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.

I didn't kill a human being, I killed a principle.

An extraordinary man has the right, that is, not an official right, but an inner right, to decide in his own conscience to overstep certain obstacles.

If I go through the fire I shall go through it to their hearts for ever and ever. And so, God be with me!

You promised me my life; but you lied. You think that life is nothing but not being stone dead. It is not the bread and water I fear: I can live on bread. But to shut me from the light of the sky and the sight of the fields and flowers.

They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals, they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth.

I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps.

They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid.

But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!

Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

An unnamed Athenian stranger walks with a Cretan and a Spartan to the cave of Zeus and drafts a legal code for a new colony called Magnesia, drawing comparatively on multiple actual historical legal traditions rather than constructing purely from abstract principle.

Over twelve books the speakers discuss the purpose of law, education, drinking parties, music, marriage, property, crime and punishment, and religion, with the preludes to each law meant to persuade citizens before compelling them rather than relying on bare command alone.

The Athenians followed a policy of allowing everyone to share in the government, thinking that the multitude ought to be sovereign in all matters.

The Council of Five Hundred is chosen by lot, fifty from each of the ten tribes, and each tribe presides in turn for one tenth of the year, so that every citizen may, if his name is drawn, take his turn at the center of the city's business.

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.

We know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.

It is natural for man, more than for any other animal, to be a social and political animal, living in a group.

Whenever several things are ordered to one end, one of them will be found to rule or direct the rest. For where there are many men together and each one is looking after his own interest, the multitude would be broken up and scattered unless there were also an agency to take care of what appertains to the common welfare.

Njal, a wise lawyer, and Gunnar of Hlidarendi, a formidable warrior, maintain a close friendship even as their wives Bergthora and Hallgerd feud with each other, a chain of killings and settlements running alongside the two men's own steady loyalty.

Gunnar is outlawed and killed at his home after refusing to leave Iceland as the law required, his attachment to his own land overriding clear knowledge of the danger this refusal would bring upon him.

Dante argues that of all things ordained for our blessedness, universal peace is the best, since it is peace, and only peace, that allows the human race to fulfil its own proper work, and that only a single supreme monarch, with no equal or rival to dispute his judgment, can secure it.

Dante contends that the Roman people, in extending their rule over the world, did so not through naked force alone but by right, since their conduct showed the moral virtue that alone qualifies a people to hold legitimate authority over others.

Dante writes that the glory of the One who moves all things penetrates the universe and shines in one part more and in another less, and that he has been in the heaven that receives most of that light, and has seen things that whoever descends from up there has neither the knowledge nor the power to retell.

Dante's ancestor Cacciaguida, encountered in the sphere of Mars, foretells Dante's coming exile from Florence in painful detail, and tells him that he will learn how salty another's bread tastes, and how hard the path is that goes up and down another's stairs.

I began to examine myself and my behavior as a natural woman, and similarly I considered other women whose company I frequently kept, and I could not see or realize, after taking real note of it, that the testimony of so many notable men could be false.

Reason tells her that the surest way to refute those who attack women is to prove, by manifest deduction and demonstrable examples, both past and present, that a great number of women have always devoted themselves to learning and the arts.

The document recounts the creation of the world, the descent of all peoples from Adam and Eve, and the establishment of the papacy, before declaring that the pope, as God's vicar on earth, donated the islands and mainland of the ocean sea to the Spanish crown.

The hearers are required to acknowledge the Church as ruler and superior of the whole world, to acknowledge the king and queen of Castile as lords of these lands by virtue of the papal donation, and to permit religious instruction to be given to them, and are told that if they do so promptly, they will be received in love and charity.

Luther tells the princes and bishops directly that their own greed and tyranny provoked the peasant rising, and warns that God will destroy them entirely if they do not relent and address the genuine grievances underlying the rebellion.

Luther tells the peasants that their grievances may indeed be just, but that they have no right to take up the sword in the name of the gospel, insisting that a Christian properly suffers wrong rather than avenging it through violent rebellion against established authority.

Drafted by the furrier Sebastian Lotzer with the preacher Christoph Schappeler, the manifesto demands the right of each community to choose its pastor, the abolition of serfdom and the small tithe, and free access to game, fish and forest.

Every article is justified from Scripture, with an offer to withdraw any shown to be against God's Word, grounding economic and social grievance in specifically religious authority rather than leaving demands as purely secular political claim.

The Indians were the true owners of their lands and goods before the Spaniards came, in public and in private, and neither their unbelief nor their sins nor any supposed want of reason deprived them of dominion.

Neither the emperor nor the pope is lord of the whole world, discovery gives no title to lands already possessed, and refusal of the faith or the sins of the natives are no just cause of war.

Roper, who lived in More's household for sixteen years, records More's rise to Lord Chancellor and his conversations with Henry VIII in the garden at Chelsea, giving readers direct firsthand access to the personal dynamic between king and chancellor.

More refuses to swear the oath acknowledging the king's supremacy over the church, is imprisoned in the Tower, and is tried on the testimony of Richard Rich, Roper recording the actual pressures and arguments More faced rather than idealized retrospective summary.