120 Powerful Justice Quotes in English

Justice stands as one of humanity’s most fundamental principles—a concept that shapes societies, legal systems, and personal ethics.

This collection combines 120 powerful quotes from influential thinkers, activists, leaders, and writers who have articulated what justice means in its many forms.

From ancient philosophers like Aristotle to modern civil rights advocates like Martin Luther King Jr., these voices offer wisdom on fairness, equality, and moral responsibility.

Some quotes challenge us to examine our own roles in creating a just world, while others remind us that the pursuit of justice requires continuous effort and vigilance.

Whether you’re seeking inspiration for social change, reflecting on legal principles, or simply exploring this essential human value, these quotes provide timeless insights into what makes a society truly and how we might work toward that ideal.

Justice in Society

1. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
2. “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.” — Benjamin Franklin.
3. “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” — Elie Wiesel.
4. “The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
5. “If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine.” — Ernesto Che Guevara.
6. “Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.” — Eleanor Roosevelt.
7. “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
8. “The opposite of poverty is not wealth. The opposite of poverty is justice.” — Bryan Stevenson.
9. “Equal rights for all, special privileges for none.” — Thomas Jefferson
10. “Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.” — Frederick Douglass
11. “If we don’t stand up for children, then we don’t stand for much.” — Marian Wright Edelman
12. “Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence kills what it intends to create.” — Pope John Paul II
13. “Social justice is a matter of life and death. It affects the way people live, their consequent chance of illness, and their risk of premature death.” — World Health Organization
14. “There can be no justice without peace, and there can be no peace without justice.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
15. “In a country well-governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.” — Confucius.
16. “Without justice, courage is weak.” — Benjamin Franklin
17. “In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future.” — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
18. “While poverty persists, there is no true freedom.” — Nelson Mandela
19. “Justice is truth in action.” — Benjamin Disraeli
20. “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” — Nelson Mandela.

Justice and Law

21. “Justice denied anywhere diminishes justice everywhere.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
22. “Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.” — Jonathan Swift.
23. “It is not wisdom but authority that makes a law.” — Thomas Hobbes
24. “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” — Anatole France
25. “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” — Theodore Parker
26. “Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men’s skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.” — Lyndon B. Johnson
27. “There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.” — Montesquieu
28. “Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.” — Honoré de Balzac
29. “Justice is the constant and perpetual will to allot to every man his due.” — Domitus Ulpian
30. “Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.” — Plato
31. “Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice, and when they fail in this purpose, they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
32. “The simplest and most basic component of justice is consistency.” — Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
33. “I always wonder why birds choose to stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on earth. Then I ask myself the same question.” — Harun Yahya.
34. “There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice.” — Charles de Montesquieu.
35. “For all of man’s laws are created equal, sometimes they change because society changes, but the fundamental fact remains, justice is a right afforded to every individual.” — Clarence Thomas.
36. “True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting.” — Cicero.
37. “Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought.” — John Rawls.
38. “A law is valuable not because it is law, but because there is right in it.” — Henry Ward Beecher.
39. “The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.” — Samuel Johnson.
40. “Where there is no law, there is no freedom.” — John Locke

Personal Justice

41. “It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.” — Voltaire.
42. “Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.” — Samuel Johnson.
43. “Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity.” — Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
44. “The first duty of society is justice.” — Alexander Hamilton
45. “The dead cannot cry out for justice. It is a duty of the living to do so for them.” — Lois McMaster Bujold
46. “Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.” — Cornel West
47. “I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.” — Abraham Lincoln
48. “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” — Reinhold Niebuhr
49. “The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.” — Aristotle
50. “A right delayed is a right denied.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
51. “Justice consists not in being neutral between right and wrong, but in finding out the right and upholding it, wherever found, against the wrong.” — Theodore Roosevelt.
52. “Justice is like a train that is nearly always late.” — Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
53. “The cry of the poor is not always just, but if you don’t listen to it, you will never know what justice is.” — Howard Zinn.
54. “The measure of a country’s greatness is its ability to retain compassion in times of crisis.” — Thurgood Marshall.
55. “The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask.” — Jim Morrison.
56. “Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.” — Augustine of Hippo
57. “It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.” — Mary Wollstonecraft
58. “There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
59. “Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical.” — Blaise Pascal.
60. “The greatest injustice is to be deprived of the right to speak out against injustice.” — Marvin X

Fighting for Justice

61. “Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.” — Coretta Scott King.
62. “Justice is never given; it is exacted and the struggle must be continuous for freedom is never a final fact, but a continuing evolving process to higher and higher levels of human, social, economic, political and religious relationship.” — A. Philip Randolph
63. “In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.” — Albert Einstein.
64. “When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers.” — Proverbs 21:15
65. “Justice is indivisible. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
66. “If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.” — Francis Bacon.
67. “Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character.” — Margaret Chase Smith.
68. “There is a higher court than courts of justice, and that is the court of conscience. It supersedes all other courts.” — Mahatma Gandhi.
69. “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.” — Robert F. Kennedy.
70. “Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph.” — Haile Selassie
71. “Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other’s welfare, social justice can never be attained.” — Helen Keller.
72. “All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come.” — Victor Hugo.
73. “Justice is a temporary thing that must at last come to an end; but the conscience is eternal and will never die.” — Martin Luther.
74. “We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
75. “The question of human rights is so fundamentally important that there should never be any doubt in any individual’s mind about where the United States stands.” — Eleanor Roosevelt.
76. “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” — Maya Angelou.
77. “No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.” — Theodore Roosevelt.
78. “Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
79. “The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
80. “The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be… The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

Justice and Equality

81. “The challenge of social justice is to evoke a sense of community that we need to make our nation a better place, just as we make it a safer place.” — Marian Wright Edelman.
82. “Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it.” — Frances Wright.
83. “Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy. Make it. Protect it. Pass it on.” — Thurgood Marshall.
84. “We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
85. “It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” — James Baldwin.
86. “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
87. “At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice, he is the worst.” — Aristotle.
88. “In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?” — Saint Augustine
89. “The more laws, the less justice.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero
90. “If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.” — Louis D. Brandeis
91. “The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don’t agree with.” — Eleanor Holmes Norton
92. “Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future, and renders the present inaccessible.” — Maya Angelou
93. “It’s not about how much you do, but how much love you put into what you do that counts.” — Mother Teresa
94. “I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.” — Desmond Tutu
95. “When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.” — Nelson Mandela
96. “As long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest.” — Nelson Mandela
97. “Racism is man’s gravest threat to man – the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.” — Abraham Joshua Heschel
98. “The beauty of anti-racism is that you don’t have to pretend to be free of racism to be anti-racist. Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself. And it’s the only way forward.” — Ijeoma Oluo
99. “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” — Mahatma Gandhi
100. “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” — Henry David Thoreau

Historical Perspectives on Justice

101. “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.
102. “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
103. “To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay, right or justice.” — Magna Carta, 1215
104. “Justice too long delayed is justice denied.” — William E. Gladstone.
105. “The universal law of justice is: act externally in such a way that the free use of your will is compatible with the freedom of every one according to a universal law.” — Immanuel Kant.
106. “Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.” — Ayn Rand.
107. “Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.” — Eleanor Roosevelt.
108. “They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it.” — Red Cloud (Lakota).
109. “An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.” — Mahatma Gandhi.
110. “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Contemporary Views on Justice

111. “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” — Desmond Tutu.
112. “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” — Elie Wiesel.
113. “Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.” — Cesar Chavez.
114. “Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.” — Howard Zinn.
115. “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” — George Orwell.
116. “We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
117. “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
118. “The time is always right to do what is right.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
119. “I say that justice is truth in action.” — Benjamin Disraeli
120. “The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

Moving from Words to Action

These 120 quotes show us that justice requires more than just understanding—it demands action.

Throughout history, visionaries and ordinary people alike have recognized that justice isn’t merely a philosophical concept but a daily practice requiring courage and commitment.

The wisdom captured here reminds us that true justice embraces equality, fairness, and human dignity while rejecting prejudice and indifference.

As we face ongoing challenges to justice in our communities and across the world, these quotes serve as both a compass and a way—to guide our moral thinking while inspiring us to speak out against injustice wherever we encounter it.

By carrying these insights forward and applying them in our lives, we contribute to the “moral arc of the universe” that slowly but surely bends toward a more just world for everyone.