We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.

I think the first duty of society is justice.

The human wish to credit good things as miraculous and to charge bad things to another account is apparently universal.

There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law.

I’ll never tell a lie. I’ll never make a misleading statement. I’ll never betray the confidence that any of you had in me. And I’ll never avoid a controversial issue.

To me, a leader is someone who holds her- or himself accountable for finding potential in people and processes. And so what I think is really important is sustainability.

If I’d written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people – including me – would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.

To accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

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

Racism is real in this country.

We are not punished for our sins, but by them.

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.

Exclusion is never the way forward on our shared paths to freedom and justice.

I don’t stand for the black man’s side, I don‘ t stand for the white man’s side. I stand for God’s side.

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.

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

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

With Benghazi, I don’t see anyone saying, ‚Hey look, I am overall responsible for this and therefore, I take responsibility for what happened. It’s my fault.‘ I haven’t heard that yet. Meanwhile, the other side of the coin, the Osama bin Laden raid, it seems everyone made that decision, and that’s just unbelievable to me.

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

Peace is more important than all justice; and peace was not made for the sake of justice, but justice for the sake of peace.

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.

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

It takes two to make a murder. There are born victims, born to have their throats cut, as the cut-throats are born to be hanged.

Understand, our police officers put their lives on the line for us every single day. They’ve got a tough job to do to maintain public safety and hold accountable those who break the law.

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.

We’re all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made.

You can wipe out your opponents. But if you do it unjustly you become eligible for being wiped out yourself.

There is no injustice in the grace of God. God is as just when He forgives a believer as when He casts a sinner into hell.

To restore the trust of the people, we must reform the way the government operates.

The majority of my interactions with police were not good. There were a few good ones who were actually protecting the community. But then you have ones from the Valley. They never met me in their life, but since I’m a kid in basketball shorts and a white T-shirt, they wanna slam me on the hood of the car. Sixteen years old.

The great liability of the engineer compared to men of other professions is that his works are out in the open where all can see them. His acts, step by step, are in hard substance. He cannot bury his mistakes in the grave like the doctors. He cannot argue them into thin air or blame the judge like the lawyers.

I think the great part about what I do is that there’s a scoreboard. At the end of every week, you know how you did. You know how well you prepared. You know whether you executed your game plan. There’s a tangible score.

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

You cannot be in a position of power and destroy the life of another person.

I don’t have to see a murder in order to condemn murder.

Accountability breeds response-ability.

In politics… never retreat, never retract… never admit a mistake.

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

My desire to devolve authority has nothing to do with a wish to shirk responsibility.

How accurately can the law fix the crime? There has to be a mechanism for very fast action. The law is like this: catch them and punish them.

No cause justifies the deaths of innocent people.

According to the law of nature it is only fair that no one should become richer through damages and injuries suffered by another.

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.

Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping?

We should every night call ourselves to an account: what infirmity have I mastered today? what passions opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.

If you want to cut your own throat, don’t come to me for a bandage.

It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.

Should there be cameras everywhere in outdoor streets? My personal view is having cameras in inner cities is a very good thing. In the case of London, petty crime has gone down. They catch terrorists because of it. And if something really bad happens, most of the time you can figure out who did it.

Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.

Against eternal injustice, man must assert justice, and to protest against the universe of grief, he must create happiness.

To God everything is beautiful, good, and just; humans, however, think some things are unjust and others just.

The jury consist of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

Not to help justice in her need would be an impiety.

Everybody will make mistakes, and for some that mistake will rise to the level of being a crime.

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

I often say to people that producing is the best-paid form of cowardice. When you produce things, you almost always get credit if it’s a good record, but you hardly ever get the blame if it’s not! You don’t really take responsibility for your work.

I let the American people down.

I have always held firmly to the thought that each one of us can do a little to bring some portion of misery to an end.

The appropriate response to terrorist crimes is police work, which has been successful worldwide.