Unjust

“ Still our old question of the comparative advantage of justice and injustice has not been answered: Which is the more profitable, to be just and act justly and practise virtue, whether seen or unseen of gods and men, or to be unjust and act unjustly, if only unpunished and unreformed? ”

“ Do you think, my Lord, that Greatness gives a Sanction to Wickedness? Or that it is the Prerogative of Lords to be unjust and inhumane? You remember the Sentence which yourself pronounc'd upon this innocent Man; you cannot think it hard that it should pass on you who are guilty. ”

“ Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The assumption that the just man should appear unjust and the unjust just: for you were of opinion that even if the true state of the case could not possibly escape the eyes of gods and men, still this admission ought to be made for the sake of the argument, in order that pure justice might be weighed against pure injustice. ”

“ Having for some years rehearsed to the unjust judge our grievances, our legal and political disabilities and social wrongs, let us glance at what we may do, at the various rights of which we may, even now, quietly take possession. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Of the many evils which throw back the well-being of society, none raise in the honest mind more painful and indignant feelings, than beholding the judgment seat of mercy and justice filled by an unjust, corrupt, and wicked judge, who has become, step by step, hardened in his impious enormities, and is the fully-prepared tool and supporter of tyranny and arbitrary208 power. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The questions about which you and I and other men quarrel are, What is just or unjust, honourable or base, good or evil? Upon these there is no accessible standard. Some men feel in one way, some in another; and each of us fights for his own opinions.22 We all indeed agree that the wrong-doer ought to be punished: but we do not agree who the wrong-doer is, nor what is wrong-doing. ”

“ 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. ”

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

“ For all uniting of strength by private men is, if for evil intent, unjust; if for intent unknown, dangerous to the public, and unjustly concealed. ”

“ Observe, that by justice I understand nothing more than that bond, which is necessary to keep the interest of individuals united; without which, men would return to their original state of barbarity. All punishments, which exceed the necessity of preserving this bond, are in their nature unjust. ”

“ Thus must we toil in others men's extremes
That know not how to remedy our own,
And do them justice, when unjustly we
For all our wrongs can compass no redress. ”

“ Justice is immortal, eternal, and immutable, like God himself; and the development of law is only then a progress, when it is directed towards those principles which, like Him, are eternal; and whenever prejudice or error succeeds in establishing in customary law any doctrine contrary to eternal justice, it is one of your noblest duties, gentlemen,—having no written Code to fetter justice within the bonds of error and prejudice,—it is one of your noblest duties to apply Principles, —to show that an unjust custom is a corrupt practice, an abuse; ”

“ What the sin is they are here charged with; they judge unjustly, contrary to the rules of equity and the dictates of their consciences, giving judgment against those who have right on their side, out of malice and ill-will, or for those who have an unrighteous cause, out of favour and partial affection. To do unjustly is bad, but to judge unjustly is much worse, because it is doing wrong under colour of right; against such acts of injustice there is least fence for the injured and by them encouragement is given to the injurious. ”

“ Amongst men, those who are prosperously unjust are entitled to a panegyric, but afflicted virtue is insolently stabbed with all manner of reproaches; ”

“ 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. ”

“ which is always sure to be injustice done, for violence does even justice unjustly. ”

“ "Loyalty and obedience to wisdom and justice are fine; but it is still finer to defy arbitrary power, unjustly and cruelly used—not on behalf of ourselves, but on behalf of others more helpless." ”

“ As we can easily discern the Vices of other Men, and forget our own, so it happens in the present Case; we can easily discern the Advantage which the Public reaps from our own Profession, but it is with great Difficulty that we are brought to examinine what Use we ourselves derive from that of another. This was the very Case with the Pharisee in the Text; he stood, and prayed and said, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. ”

“ Let others praise justice and censure injustice, magnifying the rewards and honors of the one and abusing the other; that is a manner of arguing which, coming from them, I am ready to tolerate, but from you who have spent your whole life in the consideration of this question, unless I hear the contrary from your own lips, I expect something better. And therefore, I say, not only prove to us that justice is better than injustice, but show what they either of them do to the possessor of them, which makes the one to be a good and the other an evil, whether seen or unseen by gods and men. ”

“ When an evil thought suggests that there is injustice in the circumstance that the hare falls a prey to the lion or wolf, and the fly to the spider, Reason steps in warning him as follows: How can I charge the all-Wise with injustice when I am convinced of His justice, and that injustice is quite out of the question? ”

“ When they are penurious, covetous, and for a trifling gain of some kind will overlook right, frown upon the majesty of truth, disregard justice and in all their actions manifest a strong preference for the god and glory of this world, I am prejudiced against their unrighteous preferences, but not against them as individuals; for if all the good and the evil, the strength and the weakness of which they are capable will range within the limits of a few square inches, as individuals they require my sympathy, while I abominate their sins. ”

“ Go down on your knees, you men of the people, my brothers, my children; pray, implore, require that justice be done and anger repressed. It is your duty, it is your right, and to your own interest; for it is you who are insulted and threatened when laws are violated. ”

“ Give but the conscience justice, let common sense have but the slightest voice in the decision, and you might as easily attempt to gain a man’s assent to the broadest of contradictions, even to the admission that a part is equal to the whole, or that two and two are five, as to feel guilty for another man’s crime, to feel remorse for another man’s wrong-doing, to be penitent or humble for that in which we had no participation, or to confess the justice of punishment by a sentence which made him criminal before his existence. ”

“ That part of the moral constitution, which exists in some degree in us all, which leads us to feel pain at the sight of injustice, and to desire retribution for cruelty and crime, seemed in him to have become an absorbing sentiment, as if he had been chosen by some higher power as the instrument of doom. ”

“ Honor, truth and the sacrifice of self to considerations of justice and the good of mankind—these claim, we had almost said our adoration; but for the low, brutal, cruel, lazy, ignorant, insolent, sensual and blasphemous miscreants that infest the frontiers, we entertain but one sentiment—aversion—deep, strong, and unchangeable. ”

“ We have never gone out of our way to look for trouble, being more inclined to attend to our own affairs than to oversee those of our neighbors, and, yet, when, repeatedly, gross acts of injustice and cruelty have been forced under our observation, we have, at times, been aroused to a state of what we have honestly believed to be righteous indignation, and, in these circumstances, we have conducted ourselves in accordance with our ability and the fervor of our convictions. ”

“ I have, throughout, treated the idea of a right residing in the injured person, and violated by the injury, not as a separate element in the composition of the idea and sentiment, but as one of the forms in which the other two elements clothe themselves. These elements are, a hurt to some assignable person or persons on the one hand, and a demand for punishment on the other. An examination of our own minds, I think, will show, that these two things include all that we mean when we speak of violation of a right. ”

“ For, in truth, every one of the three builds upon rules of justice confessedly true. The first appeals to the acknowledged injustice of singling out an individual, and making him a sacrifice, without his consent, for other people's benefit. The second relies on the acknowledged justice of self-defence, and the admitted injustice of forcing one person to conform to another's notions of what constitutes his good. ”

“ The same powerful motives which command the observance of these primary moralities, enjoin the punishment of those who violate them; and as the impulses of self-defence, of defence of others, and of vengeance, are all called forth against such persons, retribution, or evil for evil, becomes closely connected with the sentiment of justice, and is universally included in the idea. ”

“ With such bad bringing up, and an equal ignorance of principles of action, how will you make your way in the world? I have pardoned my slaves and my daughters-in-law for their want of politeness, but for you who are men I cannot let this fault pass unpunished. ”

“ I wish to live peaceably, but I have lately experienced so many instances of your most bare-faced and wanton oppression, to my prejudice, that there’s no longer a doubt with me what course I must be under the disagreeable necessity to take, that I may obtain redress and do justice to myself and family. ”

“ To say nothing of those evils one man brings upon another, as poverty, imprisonment, infamy, dishonesty, racks, snares, treachery, reproaches, actions, deceits--but I'm got into as endless a work as numbering the sands--for what offenses mankind have deserved these things, or what angry god compelled them to be born into such miseries is not my present business. ”

“ Seeing then that there are these two evils, the doing injustice and the suffering injustice—and we affirm that to do injustice is a greater, and to suffer injustice a lesser evil—by what devices can a man succeed in obtaining the two advantages, the one of not doing and the other of not suffering injustice? ”

“ BInjustice the opposite of justice. Must not injustice be a strife which arises among the three principles—a meddlesomeness, and interference, and rising up of a part of the soul against the whole, an assertion of unlawful authority, which is made by a rebellious subject against a true prince, of whom he is the natural vassal,—what is all this confusion and delusion but injustice, and intemperance and cowardice and ignorance, and every form of vice? ”

“ But is not our resentment against the injustice of the world partly premature and somewhat shallow and short-sighted? Are we sure we want strict justice? Are we so anxious to have our merits weighed? are they so imposing? ”

“ How many examples one could give of want of scruple violating the idea of honesty and responsibility!
How many sins, grave in themselves, are committed by men in power, knowing themselves safe from the arm of the law; how many actions, unpunishable, yet which are an outrage upon the liberty of others, a breach of respect for human nature, and an injury to society! ”

“ One casts one's afflictions, and, under certain circumstances, even one's baseness, in the teeth of those who are different, as if their condition were an injustice, an iniquitous privilege. "Since I am a blackguard you ought to be one too." ”

“ 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. ”