If the machine of government is of such a nature that requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.
- Topic: Justice
- Photo: Jeffrey Benjamin
More Quotes from Henry David Thoreau
Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
Age is not better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost.
Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts, of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
More on Justice
Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.
Perfect wisdom has four parts; Wisdom, the principle of doing things right. Justice, the principle of doing things equally in public and private. Fortitude, the principle of not fleeing danger, but meeting it. Temperance, the principle of subduing desires and living moderately.
It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.
My experience has shown me that we win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party.
The first requisite of civilization is that of justice.
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 person nor property will be safe.
Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.
Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?
If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, frank, kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh unless, since their chief purpose is to make us bear with patience the injustice of our fellows.
Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If all people all over the world would do this, it would change the earth.
Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men is primarily based on mutual trust and only secondarily on institutions such as courts of justice and police.
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
