A precedent embalms a principle.

As an attorney, I could be rather flamboyant in court. I did not act as though I were a black man in a white man’s court, but as if everyone else – white and black – was a guest in my court. When trying a case, I often made sweeping gestures and used high-flown language.

A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.

It is possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard.

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.

Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice; but only accident here below. Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death.

It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.

When the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal.

When there’s justice and change, you start to see the cleansing of the soul, and that is what I want for people, and I hope it’s okay for me to say those things.

Justice is an unassailable fortress, built on the brow of a mountain which cannot be overthrown by the violence of torrents, nor demolished by the force of armies.

Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

I don’t know the law, the kind of law of quantity and quality, but I think the opportunity of people being able to express themselves and to have the means of production is a great thing. It’s also changing how we’re telling stories.

I should like to know if, taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, you begin making exceptions to it, where will you stop? If one man says it does not mean a Negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man?

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

He who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.

If I were a Negro, I’d be fighting, as Martin Luther King fought, for human recognition and justice. I’d rather go down with my flag flying. If you’re weak or crippled, or you can’t speak out or fight back in some way, then people don’t hesitate to treat you badly.

Justice is truth in action.

What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.

In most communities it is illegal to cry ‚fire‘ in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?

The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.

Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.

It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.

Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.

The equal right of all citizens to health, education, work, food, security, culture, science, and wellbeing – that is, the same rights we proclaimed when we began our struggle, in addition to those which emerge from our dreams of justice and equality for all inhabitants of our world – is what I wish for all.

The best interpreter of the law is custom.

The universal order and the personal order are nothing but different expressions and manifestations of a common underlying principle.

Even Gaddafi’s adversaries assure us that he stood out for his intelligence as a student; he was expelled from high-school for his anti-monarchic activities. He managed to enroll in another high-school and later graduated in law at the University of Benghazi at the age of 21.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

That old law about ‚an eye for an eye‘ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.

Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality in a revolutionary.

If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.

I understood that with the swipe of my pen as a prosecutor, I would have the decision in my pen to make a decision about someone’s life.

For me, my secularism is, India first. I say, the philosophy of my party is ‚Justice to all. Appeasement to none.‘ This is our secularism.

If the law is upheld only by government officials, then all law is at an end.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

Truth never damages a cause that is just.

A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.

Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit.

You’re innocent until proven guilty.

After the chaos and carnage of September 11th, it is not enough to serve our enemies with legal papers.

The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.

When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.

I love being in a courtroom.

A right delayed is a right denied.

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

Alimony – the ransom that the happy pay to the devil.

It’s annoying, but justice and equality are mates. Aren’t they? Justice always wants to hang out with equality. And equality is a real pain.

Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.

A principle is the expression of perfection, and as imperfect beings like us cannot practise perfection, we devise every moment limits of its compromise in practice.

I have always fought for concrete facts, for justice.

Law is always better than war.

Let us remember we are all part of one American family. We are united in common values, and that includes belief in equality under the law, basic respect for public order, and the right of peaceful protest.

The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.

I was arrested three times and tortured once.

On wrongs swift vengeance waits.

There is an orderliness in the universe, there is an unalterable law governing everything and every being that exists or lives. It is no blind law; for no blind law can govern the conduct of living beings.

I don’t think that a Justice should have uppermost in her mind, ‚A Democratic president appointed me, so I must leave to be sure that another Democratic president can appoint my successor.‘

I hope that a move toward clemency with Judge Afiuni would be a step towards the importance of maintaining a properly functioning justice system.

It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.