Unjust man

“ Thus an unjust man makes himself odious to the just, and it is one part of his present shame and punishment that good men cannot endure him. 2. All that are unsanctified have a like rooted antipathy to godliness and godly people: He that is upright in the way, that makes conscience of what he says and does, is an abomination to the wicked, whose wickedness is restrained perhaps and suppressed, or, at least, shamed and condemned, by the uprightness of the upright. ”

“ Let us make no deduction either from the injustice of the unjust, or from the justice of the just, but let us suppose each to be perfect in his own line of conduct. First of all then, the unjust man must act as skilful craftsmen do. ”

“ So that the life of an unjust man who can perfectly conceal his motives (as many men can and do, even without this magic ring) may be fairly set up as more desirable than that of a just man; and thus injustice may in many cases be preferable to justice, on account of the greater happiness which it brings, and of this every man must judge for himself. ”

“ You must even go farther: you must suppose that both 18of them are misconceived, and that the just man is disgraced and punished as if he were unjust — the unjust man honoured and rewarded as if he were just. This is the only way of testing the real intrinsic value of justice and injustice, considered in their effects upon the mind. ”

“ This is another lesson against injustice; a topic in which our just Author abounds. And, if we consider the matter fairly, we must allow it to be as reasonable that some one should do violence to us, as we should commit it upon another. When we are impartial in our reflections, thus we must always think. The unjust man, with a hardened unfeeling heart, can do a thousand bitter things to others: but if a single calamity touches himself, oh, how tender he is! How insupportable is the uneasiness it occasions! ”

“ Let us take as a starting-point, then, the various meanings of 'an unjust man'. Both the lawless man and the grasping and unfair man are thought to be unjust, so that evidently both the law-abiding and the fair man will be just. ”

“ How unjust are mankind when they presume to judge by appearances, and in deference to their vain, arrogant prejudices. The man whom I upbraided in my heart for shaking as it were in triumph those horrible keys, to make me more keenly sensible of his power, whom I set down as an insignificant tyrant, inured to practices of cruelty, was then revolving thoughts of compassion, and assuredly had spoken in that harsh tone only to conceal his real feelings. ”

“ I will never believe that a man endowed with good sense, provided he is honest, could pass an unjust sentence as it were against himself. And therefore I must continue in my sacred undertaking, for it is nothing to the point why any wrong goes unpunished--whether the human weakness, or stupidity, or the ill-will of the magistrates be at fault. It is enough for me that the wrong is there and requires to be rooted out. ”

“ For who will believe that the man who every day shows that he is unjust in all matters other than those which concern property, and whose boundless selfishness everywhere protrudes through the small affairs of ordinary life which are subject to no scrutiny, like a dirty shirt through the holes of a ragged jacket—who, I ask, will believe that such a man will act honourably in matters of meum and tuum without any other incentive but that of justice? ”

“ It is no rare thing for him whose indignation is kindled at a tale of wicked injustice, cruel oppression, base slander, or misery inflicted by unbridled indulgence; whose anger flames in behalf of the injured and ruined victims of wrong; to be in some relation unjust, or oppressive, or envious, or self-indulgent, or a careless talker of others. How wonderfully indignant the penurious man often is, at the avarice or want of public spirit of another! ”

“ Let us place the most just by the side of the most unjust, and when we see them we shall be able to compare the relative happiness or unhappiness of him who leads a life of pure justice or pure injustice. ”

“ For a man who, seeing the want and misery, the ignorance and brutishness caused by unjust social institutions, sets himself to right them in so far as he has strength, there is disappointment and bitterness. ”

“ Again, since a man may do unjust acts and not yet have formed a character of injustice, the question arises whether a man is unjust in each particular form of injustice, say a thief, or adulterer, or robber, by doing acts of a given character. ”

“ If the Desolation the Law has made, were recorded, and the Ensigns of the Orphans and Widows were hung up, whose forlorn Relations have been press’d into the Service, there would be no Room for those brought from the Danube and Ramellies. ’Tis true, much may be said in Favour of a mistaken Client, in Excuse of Ignorance, Passion, and the like: But where a Man engages in a Cause palpably litigious and unjust, he becomes a Party to the Injustice, and deserves at least equal Punishment with him he appears for. ”

“ Again, all other unjust acts are ascribed invariably to some particular kind of wickedness, e.g. adultery to self-indulgence, the desertion of a comrade in battle to cowardice, physical violence to anger; but if a man makes gain, his action is ascribed to no form of wickedness but injustice. ”

“ You accuse life of injustice,—it is you who are unjust to life! Life gave you those dreams and aspirations you speak of,—it was in your power to realise them! I say it was in your power, had you chosen! No parents, no friends, not God Himself, can stop you from doing what you WILL to do! ”

“ Systems most unjust and despotic have been defended by men personally just and humane. It is a melancholy consideration, but no less true, that there is almost no absurdity and no injustice that has not, at some period of the world’s history, had the advantage of some good man’s virtues in its support. ”

“ Is it truly possible to be willingly treated unjustly, or is all suffering of injustice the contrary involuntary, as all unjust action is voluntary? And is all suffering of injustice of the latter kind or else all of the former, or is it sometimes voluntary, sometimes involuntary? ”

“ And it is a characteristic of man that he alone has any sense of good and evil, of just and unjust, and the like, and the association of living beings who have this sense makes a family and a state. ”

“ A fool the man who says, 'We will do evildoing in our turn, and our heart shall be comforted. We will be unjust, and it shall be the beginning of justice.' Evildoing is in evil desiring. Desire nothing, and evildoing will be done away. Injustice hurts only the unjust ”

“ Monsieur l'Abbe, it is sometimes the misfortune of just men to be terribly unjust. 'For conscience sake' is another name for prejudice— for those antipathies which, natural to us, are, at the same time, trap- doors, for our just intentions. ”

“ I can never forgive the unjust stigma that has been placed on my character; and should justice be refused me during my whole life, I will leave it with my children and theirs to seek it. When my enemies wounded my feelings, robbed me of my property, and affected temporarily my reputation, I consoled myself that my friends would soon be in power, and they would make every thing right. ”

“ We ought to examine these things in a manner which becomes ourselves, and becomes the object of the inquiry,—not to examine into the most important consideration which can come before us with minds heated with prejudice and filled with passions, with vain popular opinions and humors, and, when we propose to examine into the justice of others, to be unjust ourselves. ”

“ I used to despise justice as a shabby virtue, but now it seems to me the only lack. We are unjust in our treatment and in our opinion of persons. In the first we are too sweet, in the last too severe. ”

“ A good man should and must
Sit rather down with loss, than rise unjust. ”

“ I am unjust, but I can strive for justice.
My life's unkind, but I can vote for kindness.
I, the unloving, say life should be lovely.
I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness. ”

“ He only blames injustice who, owing to cowardice or age or some weakness, has not the power of being unjust. And this is proved by the fact that when he obtains the power, he immediately becomes unjust as far as he can be. ”

“ Now here, I think, gentlemen are unjust towards us. How unjust they are, others will judge; generations that will come after us will judge. It will not be contended that this sort of personal slavery exists by general law. ”

“ What justice is there, what right is there, in asking me to say how I would act under, circumstances which are impossible, which lie beyond the limit of human experience? You cannot judge a man by what he would do if he were suddenly, robbed of all his mental and moral training and of the habit of years. ”

“ A weak conscience has disincumbered him of integrity, and a dislike to poverty freed him from every grain of morality. Right and wrong claim no distinction, but as they severally serve his interest. Justice and injustice bear the same convenient equality. It would be matter of wonder should a man, so happily equipped for advancement, miss success. ”

“ There must be deep in our souls, some original sense of justice, for there is nothing so maddens a man and sweeps him in angry fever beyond the control of reason, as a sense of injustice done, not only to himself, but to another. ”

“ "Man is unjust, but God is just; and finally justice
Triumphs; ”

“ One sometimes sees the odious expression, ‘Justice to myself compels me to say,’ &c., but you are the only man I ever heard of who persistently does himself an injustice, and never demands justice. Indeed, you ought in the review to have alluded to your paper in the ‘Linnean Journal,’ and I feel sure all our friends will agree in this. ”

“ I say to you that whoever practices injustice is an evil-doer, and whoever permits injustice is his accomplice.
"There is a pride which in God's eyes is an honor to a man, and there is also an arrogance which will cause him to stumble and to be crushed. ”

“ See how, confounding the weakness and the folly of the human heart with direct and actual criminality, you have suffered the probable or the possible to usurp the place of the inevitably true; have been so carried away by prejudice or by passion as to sentence an innocent man!—see, I say, that your judgments are fallible and your tests are weak ”

“ First, that though it is equally of bad consequence to society, that men should have either good or ill characters which they do not deserve; yet, when you say somewhat good of a man which he does not deserve, there is no wrong done him in particular; whereas, when you say evil of a man, which he does not deserve, here is a direct formal injury, a real piece of injustice done him. ”

“ When the action is considered as unjust, it occasions another set of feelings. In the author it produces remorse, and a dread of merited punishment; and in others, the benefactor chiefly, indignation and hatred directed upon the ungrateful person. Thus shame and remorse united in the ungrateful{26} person, and indignation united with hatred in the hearts of others, are the punishments provided by nature for injustice. ”

“ Being Unjust is Essential.—All judgments of the value of life are illogically developed and therefore unjust. The vice of the judgment consists, first, in the way in which the subject matter comes under observation, that is, very incompletely ”

“ I should add to the misfortunes of my life that of seeming criminal in the eyes of a man who ought to have justified me, even against convincing appearances, if by my avowed innocence I had a right to complain or to expostulate: but how is it possible for me to justify myself at such a distance ”