Quotes about Justice

Justice is in subjects as well as in rulers.

All men are equal in nature, and also in original sin. It is in the merits and demerits of their actions that they differ.

Anger and the like are attributed to God on account of a similitude of effect. Thus, because to punish is properly the act of an angry man, God's punishment is metaphorically spoken of as His anger.

Now just vengeance is taken only for that which is done unjustly; hence that which provokes anger is always something considered in the light of an injustice.

Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution; justice without mercy is cruelty.

It is not theft, properly speaking, to take secretly and use another's property in a case of extreme need: because that which he takes for the support of his life becomes his own property by reason of that need

He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust.

justice without mercy is cruelty; mercy without justice is dissolution.

Tyrannical governance is unjust, since it is ordered to the private good of the ruler, not to the common good . . . And so disturbance of such governance does not have the character of rebellion . . . Rather, tyrants, who by seeking greater domination incite discontent and rebellion in the people subject to the them, are the rebels.

We should eliminate sin if we wish to eliminate the scourge of tyrants.

Three things are required for a war to be just. Indeed, the first requirement is that the ruler at whose command the war is to be waged have the lawful authority to do so. . . . Second, there needs to be a just cause to wage war, namely, that the enemy deserve to have war waged against it because of some wrong it has inflicted. . . . Third, those waging war need to have a right intention, namely, an intention to promote good and avoid evil.

Human law does not prescribe concerning all the acts of every virtue: but only in regard to those that are ordainable to the common good—either immediately, as when certain things are done directly for the common good—or mediately, as when a lawgiver prescribes certain things pertaining to good order, whereby the citizens are directed in the upholding of the common good of justice and peace.