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"A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer."
can be found attributed to: Herbert Spencer, Robert Frost, Michael Pritchard, John Fredericksen, humorous “tagline” etc.
-Anon.
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Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.
-Lord (John Emerich Edward Dalberg) Acton, attributed, unverified
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I always rejoice when I see a tribunal filled with a man of an upright and inflexible temper, who in the execution of his country’s laws can overcome all private fear, resentment, solicitation, and even pity it self. Whatever passion enters into a sentence or decision, so far will there be in it a tincture of injustice. In short, justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is therefore always represented as blind, that we may suppose her thoughts are wholly intent on the equity of a cause, without being diverted or prejudiced by objects foreign to it.
-Joseph Addison, Guardian, No. 99, July 4, 1713
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There is no virtue so truly great and godlike as Justice. Most of the other virtues are the virtues of created Beings, or accommodated to our nature as we are men. Justice is that which is practised by God himself, and to be practised in its perfection by none but him. Omniscience and Omnipotence are requisite for the full exertion of it. The one, to discover every degree of uprightness or iniquity in thoughts, words and actions. The other, to measure out and impart suitable rewards and punishments.
As to be perfectly just is an attribute in the divine nature, to be so to the utmost of our abilities is the glory of a man. Such an one who has the publick administration in his hands, acts like the representative of his Maker, in recompencing the virtuous, and punishing the offender.
-Joseph Addison, Guardian, No. 99, July 4, 1713
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"If we do not maintain Justice, Justice will not maintain us."
-Francis Bacon
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The price of Justice is eternal publicity.
-Arnold Bennett, Things That Have Interested Me, “Secret Trials,” Second Series (1923)
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In the Halls of Justice, the only justice is in the halls.
-Lenny Bruce
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Guilt or innocence becomes irrelevant in the criminal trial as we flounder in a morass of artificial rules poorly conceived and often impossible of application.
-Warren Earl Burger, Frazier v. U.S., 419 F.2d 1161, 1176 (D.C. 1969)
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It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest. I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.
-Edmund Burke, Works, vol. II, p. 136, Speech on Conciliation with America
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Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.
-Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France
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"Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe."
-Edmund Burke
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Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.
-Samuel Butler, Samuel Butler’s Notebooks, p. 56
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"The law isn't justice. It's a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be."
-Raymond Chandler
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"When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty."
-Norm Crosby
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"There is no such thing as justice--in or out of court."
-Clarence Darrow
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"Fiat justitia et pereat mundus.
Let justice be done, though the world perish."
-Ferdinand I
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"A court is a place where what was confused before becomes more unsettled than ever."
-Henry Waldorf Francis
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"Justice delayed is justice denied."
-William Ewart Gladstone
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When one has been threatened with a great injustice, one accepts a smaller as a favour.
-Emma Goldman
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All are presumed good till they are found at fault.
-George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum, No. 943. (1640)
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"Justice is incidental to law and order."
-J. Edgar Hoover
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When a man is just and firm in his purpose,
The citizens burning to approve a wrong
Or the frowning looks of a tyrant
Do not shake his fixed mind, nor the Southwind.
Wild lord of the uneasy Adriatic,
Nor the thunder in the mighty hand of Jove:
Should the heavens crack and tumble down,
As the ruins crushed him he would not fear.
-Horace, Odes 3.3, translated by Joseph P. Clancy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960)
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Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.
-Martin Luther King, Jr., "Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?", August 16, 1967
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"In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law ... That would lead to anarchy. An individual who breaks a law that his conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
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"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."
-Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963
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Clouds and darkness surround us, yet Heaven is just, and the day of triumph will surely come, when justice and truth will be vindicated. Our wrongs will be made right, and we will once more, taste the blessings of freedom.
-Mary Ann Todd Lincoln
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Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been, and ever will be pursued, until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.
-James Madison, The Federalist (no. 51)
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JUDGE, n: A law student who marks his own papers.
-H. L. Mencken
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"The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence."
-H. L. Mencken
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'[Irritable Judges] suffer from a bad case of premature adjudication.'
-Sir John Mortimer
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"Justice consists in doing no injury to men; decency in giving them no offense."
-Marcus Tullius Cicero De Officiis
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"The more laws, the less justice."
-Marcus Tullius Cicero De Officiis
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"We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read."
-Mark Twain
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"Justice, Sir, is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together. Wherever her temple stands, and so long as it is duly honoured, there is a foundation for social security; general happiness and the improvement and progress of our race. And whoever labours on this edifice with usefulness and distinction, whoever clears its foundations, strenthens its pillars, adores its entablatures or contributes to raise its august dome, still higher in the skies, connects himself in name and fame and character with that which is and must be as durable as the freedom of human society."
-Daniel Webster, funeral oration on Mr. Justice Story, 1845
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The weakest arm is strong enough, that strikes
With the sword of justice.
-John Webster, The Duchess Of Malfi, Act V, scene ii
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Books about Justice
