Justice

Works to read

• A Theory of Justice by John Rawls, 1971
• The Republic by Plato, c. 380 BCE · Great Books
• The Oresteia by Aeschylus, 458 BCE · Great Books
• Inaugural Address by John F. Kennedy, 1961
• Gorgias by Plato, c. 387-385 BC · Great Books
• Critias by Plato, c. 360 BC · Great Books
• Politics by Aristotle, c. 350 BCE · Great Books
• Richard II by William Shakespeare, c. 1595 · Great Books
• The Founding Documents by Continental Congress and United States Constitutional Convention, 1776-1791 · Great Books
• Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill, 1861 · Great Books
• The Code of Hammurabi by Hammurabi of Babylon, c. 1754 BC (stele); English translation by C. H. W. Johns, 1903
• Theogony and Works and Days by Hesiod, c. 700 BC

Passages

From the texts

• And for this same reason Justice alone of all the Virtues is thought to be a good to others, because it has immediate relation to some other person, inasmuch as the Just man does what is advantageous to another, either to his ruler or fellow-subject.

  — Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

Verified quotations

• Let him not die. My brother had but justice, In that he did the thing for which he died

  — William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

• For if Justice and Righteousness perish, human life would no longer have any value in the world

  — Immanuel Kant, The Science of Right

• If magistrates had true justice, and if physicians had the true art of healing, they would have no occasion for square caps

  — Blaise Pascal, Pensees

• The virtues, also, such as justice, self-restraint, and so on, are not easily dislodged or dismissed, so as to give place to vice

  — Aristotle, Categories

• The law I bear no malice for my death; ’T has done, upon the premises, but justice. But those that sought it I could wish more Christians

  — William Shakespeare, Henry VIII

• Sir, I desire you do me right and justice, And to bestow your pity on me; for I am a most poor woman and a stranger, Born out of your dominions

  — William Shakespeare, Henry VIII

Passages are verified quotations from the library that use one of these words: justice, just, unjust, injustice. Sentences under “From the texts” are copied word for word from the full texts in this library. Read each in its context on the work's page.