Why doesn't a man always strike out the first of the two words, to gratify his diabolical love of injustice?
 Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., The Professor at the Breakfast-Table (1860). copy citation

Context

“has not the first-comer the prior right? This act of abstract justice, which I trust many of my readers, like myself, have often performed, is a curious anti-illustration, by the way, of the absolute wickedness of human dispositions. Why doesn't a man always strike out the first of the two words, to gratify his diabolical love of injustice? So, I say, we owe a genuine, substantial tribute of respect to these filtered intellects which have left their womanhood on the strainer. They are so clear that it is a pleasure at times to look at the world of thought through them.” source