Philosopher Quotes on Justice

“All mankind being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”

Second Treatise of Government , Ch. II, sec. 6

“The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom.”

Second Treatise of Government , Ch. VI, sec. 57

“Where there is no law, there is no freedom.”

Second Treatise of Government , Ch. VI, sec. 57

“Government has no other end, but the preservation of property.”

Second Treatise of Government , Ch. VII. sec. 94

“Wit and good nature meeting in a fair young lady as they do in you make the best resemblance of an angel that we know; and he that is blessed with the conversation and friendship of a person so extraordinary enjoys all that remains of paradise in this world.”

Letter to Mary Clarke (7 May 1682), quoted in Maurice Cranston, John Locke: A Biography (1957; 1985), p. 221

“As for me, I cease not to advocate peace. It may be on unjust terms, but even so it is more expedient than the justest of civil wars. Epistulae ad Atticum (Letters to Atticus) Book VII, Letter 14, section 3; as translated by E.O. Winstedt in the Loeb Classical Library”

Equidem ad pacem hortari non desino; quae vel iniusta utilior est quam iustissimum bellum cum civibus.

Attributed to Cicero:

“Justice consists in doing no injury to men; decency in giving them no offence.”

Attributed to Cicero:

“What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage.”

Attributed to Cicero:

“We are servants of the laws so that we may be free.”

Attributed to Cicero:

“The safety of the people shall be the highest law.”

“All for ourselves and nothing for other people seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.”

Chapter IV, p. 448.

“No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.”

Chapter VIII, p. 94.

“Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.”

Section II, Chap. III.

“To desire you to read my book over and mark all the corrections you would wish me to make...would oblige me greatly: I know how much I shall be benefitted and I shall at the same time preserve the pretious right of private judgement for the sake of which our forefathers kicked out the Pope and the Pretender. I believe you to be much more infalliable than the Pope, but as I am a Protestant my conscience makes me scruple to submit to any unscriptural authority.”

Letter to William Strahan (4 April 1760), quoted in Adam Smith, The Correspondence of Adam Smith , eds. E. C. Mossner and I. S. Ross (1987), pp. 67–68

“I perfectly agree with your Lordship too, that to crush the Industry of so great and so fine a province of the empire, in order to favour the monopoly of some particular towns in Scotland or England, is equally unjust and impolitic. The general opulence and improvement of Ireland might certainly, under proper management, afford much greater resources to the Government, than can ever be drawn from a few mercantile or manufacturing towns.”

Letter to Henry Dundas (1 November 1779), quoted in Adam Smith, The Correspondence of Adam Smith , eds. E. C. Mossner and I. S. Ross (1987), p. 241

Attributed to Jeremy Bentham:

“It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.”

Attributed to Jeremy Bentham:

“The question is not, can they reason? nor, can they talk? but, can they suffer?”

Attributed to Jeremy Bentham:

“Natural rights is simple nonsense; natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense, nonsense upon stilts.”

Attributed to Jeremy Bentham:

“The said truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.”

Attributed to Jeremy Bentham:

“Every law is an evil, for every law is an infraction of liberty.”

“The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance.”

Chapter I, Section 3, pg. 12

“Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.”

Chapter II, Section 11, pg. 60

“Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage, and attached to positions and offices open to all.”

Chapter II, Section 11, pg. 60

“The concept of justice I take to be defined, then, by the role of its principles in assigning rights and duties and in defining the appropriate division of social advantages. A conception of justice is an interpretation of this role.”

Chapter I, Section 2, pg. 10

“Social and economic inequalities, for example inequalities of wealth and authority, are just only if they result in compensating benefits for everyone, and in particular for the least advantaged members of society.”

p. 14.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

When bad men combine , the good must associate ; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle . It is not enough in a situation of trust in the commonwealth, that a man means well to his country ; it is not enough that in his single person he never did an evil act , but always voted according to his conscience , and even harangued against every design which he a

“Justice was in all countries originally administered by the priesthood; nor indeed could laws in their first feeble state have either authority or sanction, so as to compel men to relinquish their natural independence, had they not appeared to come down to them enforced by beings of more than human power. The first openings of civility have been everywhere made by religion. Amongst the Romans, the custody and interpretation of the laws continued solely in the college of the pontiffs for above a century.”

An Essay towards an Abridgment of English History (1757– c . 1763), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI (1856), p. 196

“An Essay towards an Abridgment of English History (1757– c . 1763), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI (1856), p. 196”

Justice was in all countries originally administered by the priesthood; nor indeed could laws in their first feeble state have either authority or sanction, so as to compel men to relinquish their natural independence, had they not appeared to come down to them enforced by beings of more than human power. The first openings of civility have been everywhere made by religion. Amongst the Romans, the

“An Essay towards an Abridgment of English History (1757– c . 1763), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI (1856), p. 215”

In the interval between his campaigns Agricola was employed in the great labours of peace. He knew that the general must be perfected by the legislator; and that the conquest is neither permanent nor honourable, which is only an introduction to tyranny... In short, he subdued the Britons by civilizing them; and made them exchange a savage liberty for a polite and easy subjection. His conduct is th

“An Essay towards an Abridgment of English History (1757– c . 1763), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI (1856), p. 282”

These principles it is necessary strictly to attend to, because they will serve much to explain the whole course both of government and real property, wherever the German nations obtained a settlement; the whole of their government depending for the most part upon two principles in our nature,—ambition, that makes one man desirous, at any hazard or expense, of taking the lead amongst others; and a

“The Law(道, Way) is Huge and Shapeless, its Moral extends everywhere.”

夫道者、弘大而無形，德者、覈理而普至。至於群生，斟酌用之，萬物皆盛，而不與其寧。 | More Power" (《揚權》)

“When all within the four seas have been put in their proper places, [the sage] sits in darkness to observe the light. When those to his left and right have taken their places, he opens the gate to face the world. He changes nothing, alters nothing, but acts with the two handles of reward and punishment, acts and never ceases: this is what is called walking the path of principle.”

四海既藏，道陰見陽。左右既立，開門而當。勿變勿易，與二俱行，行之不已，是謂履理也。 | Wielding Power", in Han Feizi: Basic Writings (2003)

“No state is forever strong or forever weak . If those who uphold the law are strong, the state will be strong; if they are weak, the state will be weak.”

國無常強，無常弱。奉法者強則國強，奉法者弱則國弱。 | On Having Standards", in Han Feizi: Basic Writings (2003)

“A truly enlightened ruler uses the law to select men for him; he does not choose them himself. He uses the law to weigh their merits; he does not attempt to judge them for himself.”

On Having Standards", in Han Feizi: Basic Writings (2003)

Attributed to Han Feizi:

“The enlightened ruler does not need the worthy or the wise; he relies on law.”

“Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.”

Book XXIX: Of the Manner of Composing Laws, Chapter 16: Things to be Observed in the Composing of Laws

“Il n’y a point de plus cruelle tyrannie que celle que l’on exerce à l’ombre des lois et avec les couleurs de la justice, lorsqu’on va, pour ainsi dire, noyer des malheureux sur la planche même sur laquelle ils s’étaient sauvés.”

No tyranny is more cruel than the one practiced in the shadow of the laws and under color of justice — when, so to speak, one proceeds to drown the unfortunate on the very plank by which they had saved themselves. See Chap. XIV of Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence . Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline (1734), p.

“No tyranny is more cruel than the one practiced in the shadow of the laws and under color of justice — when, so to speak, one proceeds to drown the unfortunate on the very plank by which they had saved themselves. See Chap. XIV of Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence . Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline (1734), p. 89. Quoted in Steve Sheppard, I Do Solemnly Swear: The Moral Obligations of Legal Officials (2009), preface - xxiv.”

Il n’y a point de plus cruelle tyrannie que celle que l’on exerce à l’ombre des lois et avec les couleurs de la justice, lorsqu’on va, pour ainsi dire, noyer des malheureux sur la planche même sur laquelle ils s’étaient sauvés.

Attributed to Montesquieu:

“Liberty is the right to do what the laws permit.”

Attributed to Montesquieu:

“There is no nation so powerful as the one that obeys its laws.”

“The Rights of Man and Natural Law (1943), p. 2.”

In each of us there dwells a mystery, and that mystery is the human personality.

“The Rights of Man (1945). London: Geoffrey Bles, pp. 7–8.”

Thus society is born, as something required by nature, and (because this nature is human nature) as something accomplished through a work of reason and will, and freely consented to. Man is a political animal, which means that the human person craves political life, communal life, not only with regard to the family community, but with regard to the civil community.

“The truth of practical intellect is understood not as conformity to an extramental being but as conformity to a right desire; the end is no longer to know what is, but to bring into existence that which is not yet.”

Action: the Perfection of Human Life,” Sewanee Review , LVI (Winter, 1948), pp. 3-4.

Attributed to Jacques Maritain:

“Human rights are the rights of human beings as moral persons.”

Attributed to Jacques Maritain:

“There is one human nature, common to all the diverse cultures of mankind.”

“Nothing is more miserable than those people who never failed to attack their own salvation. When there was need to observe the Law, they trampled it under foot. … On this account Stephen said: "You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart, you always resist the Holy Spirit", not only by transgressing the Law but also by wishing to observe it at the wrong time.”

Eight Homilies Against the Jews , Homily 1

“The Master is gracious and receives the last even as the first; He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour, just as to him who has labored from the first. He has mercy upon the last and cares for the first; to the one He gives, and to the other He is gracious. He both honors the work and praises the intention.”

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Attributed to John Chrysostom:

“If you cannot find Christ in the beggar at the church door, you will not find him in the chalice.”

Attributed to John Chrysostom:

“The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war.”

Attributed to John Chrysostom:

“He who is not angry when there is just cause is sinful.”

“Every nation has the government it deserves.”

Original text: Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite. | Letter 76, on the topic of Russia's new constitutional laws (27 August 1811); published in Lettres et Opuscules . The English translation has several variations, including "Every country has the government it deserves" and "In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve." The quote is popularly misattributed to better-known commen

“All grandeur, all power, all subordination, rest on the executioner.”

First Dialogue," p. 20

“The wiser nations are, the more public spirit they possess, the more perfect their political constitution, the fewer constitutional laws they have, for these laws are only props, and a building only needs props when it has become out of plumb or when it has been violently shaken by an external force. The most perfect constitution of antiquity was without contradiction that of Sparta, and Sparta has not left us a single line of its public law. It justly boasted of having written its laws only in the hearts of its children.”

p. 84

Attributed to Joseph de Maistre:

“Where there is no judge, there is no political society.”

Attributed to Joseph de Maistre:

“The hangman is the foundation of social order.”

“Whatever arises from a just situation by just steps is itself just.”

Ch. 7 : Distributive Justice, Section I, The Entitlement Theory, p. 151

“The minimal state is the most extensive state that can be justified.”

Preface, p. ix

“Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor.”

Ch. 7 : Distributive Justice, Section I, Redistribution and Property Rights, p. 169

“Individuals have rights and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do. How much room do individual rights leave for the state?”

Preface, p. ix

“Some anarchists have claimed not merely that we would be better off without a state, but that any state necessarily violates people's moral rights and hence is intrinsically immoral. Our starting point then, though nonpolitical, is by intention far from nonmoral. Moral philosophy sets the background for, and boundaries of, political philosophy . What persons may and may not do to one another limits what they may do through the apparatus of a state, or do to establish such an apparatus.”

Ch. 1 : Why State of Nature Theory?; Political Philosophy, p. 6

“I personally have great skepticism about the theories extolling the wonders of " Asian values ." They are often based on badly researched generalizations and frequently uttered by governmental spokesmen countering accusations of authoritarianism and violations of human rights (as happened spectacularly at the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993).”

Amartya Sen, Foreword to The Passions and the Interests by Albert O. Hirschman (1996)

“Amartya Sen, "Human Rights and Asian Values" Sixteenth Annual Morgenthau Memorial Lecture on Ethics and Foreign Policy, May 25, 1997; Republished in: Tibor R. Machan (2013), Business Ethics in the Global Market. p. 69”

Since the conception of human rights transcends local legislation and the citizenship of the person affected, it is not surprising that support for human rights can also come from anyone—whether or not she is a citizen of the same country as the person whose rights are threatened. A foreigner does not need the permission of a repressive government to try to help a person whose liberties are being

Attributed to Amartya Sen:

“Famines are caused by failures of entitlement, not by failures of food production alone.”

Attributed to Amartya Sen:

“The pursuit of justice begins with attention to clear and remediable injustices.”

Attributed to Amartya Sen:

“What people are actually able to do and to be is the proper space for justice.”

“I believe that certain inequalities that cannot be forbidden in the name of socialist equality of opportunity should nevertheless be forbidden, in the name of community. But is it an injustice to forbid the transactions that generate those inequalities? Do the relevant prohibitions merely define the terms within which justice will operate, or do they sometimes (justifiably?) contradict justice? I do not know the answer to that question.”

II. The Trip's Principles

“Market socialism does not fully satisfy socialist standards of distributive justice, but it scores far better by those standards than market capitalism does, and is therefore an eminently worthwhile project, from a socialist point of view.”

IV. Is the Ideal Feasible?

Attributed to G. A. Cohen:

“From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs is still the right ideal.”

Attributed to G. A. Cohen:

“Equality requires the absence of unjust inequalities, not the absence of all difference.”

Attributed to G. A. Cohen:

“Capitalism is incompatible with the community we owe one another.”

“This liberalism says, in other words, that what makes the just society just is not the telos or purpose or end at which it aims, but precisely its refusal to choose in advance among competing purposes and ends. In its constitution and its laws, the just society seeks to provide a framework within which its citizens can pursue their own values and ends, consistent with a similar liberty for others”

Michael J. Sandel, "The Procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self" (1984)

Attributed to Michael Sandel:

“We cannot reason our way to justice without reasoning together about the good.”

Attributed to Michael Sandel:

“Some things money should not buy.”

Attributed to Michael Sandel:

“A meritocracy that is not also humble is a tyranny.”

Attributed to Michael Sandel:

“Justice is not just about the right way to distribute things; it is about the right way to value them.”

“Taking Rights Seriously (1978), p. 31”

Discretion, like the hole in a doughnut, does not exist except as an area left open by a surrounding belt of restriction. It is therefore a relative concept. It always makes sense to ask, "Discretion under which standards?" or "Discretion as to which authority?

“Taking Rights Seriously (1978), p. 164”

Nixon is no longer president, and his crimes were so grave that no one is likely now to worry very much any more about the details of his own legal philosophy. Nevertheless in what follows I shall use the name 'Nixon' to refer, not to Nixon, but to any politician holding the set of attitudes about the Supreme Court that he made explicit in his political campaigns. There was, fortunately, only one

“Law's Empire (1986), Preface”

We live in and by the law . It makes us what we are: citizens and employees and doctors and spouses and people who own things. It is sword , shield, and menace: we insist on our wage, or refuse to pay our rent, or are forced to forfeit penalties, or are closed up in jail, all in the name of what our abstract and ethereal sovereign, the law, has decreed. And we argue about what it has decreed, even

Attributed to Ronald Dworkin:

“Law is an interpretive concept.”

Attributed to Ronald Dworkin:

“Rights are trumps over collective goals.”

“I ask no favor for my sex; all I ask of our brethren is that they will take their feet from off our necks.”

Letter 2 (July 17, 1837).

“Letter to Harriot Hunt (1853), as quoted in The Grimké Sisters from South Carolina: Pioneers for Woman's [sic] Rights and Abolition , p. 241, by Gerda Lerner. Editorial Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0195106032 .”

At sixty I look back on a life of deep disappointments, of withered hopes, of unlooked for suffering, of severe discipline. Yet I have sometimes tasted exquisite joy and have found solace for many a woe in the innocence and earnest love of Theodore's children. But for this my life would have little to record of mundane pleasures.

“Oh, had I received the education I desired, had I been bred to the profession of the law, I might have been a useful member of society, and instead of myself and my property being taken care of, I might have been a protector of the helpless, a pleader for the poor and unfortunate.”

As quoted in The Grimke Sisters from South Carolina , by Gerda Lerner , ch.5 (1969).

“I am persuaded that the rights of woman, like the rights of slaves, need only be examined to be understood and asserted.”

Letter 3 (July 1837).

Attributed to Sarah Grimke:

“The page of history teems with woman's wrongs; it is wet with woman's tears.”

“Platonic Justice", Ethics , April 1938. Translated by Glenn Negley from "Die platonische Gerechtigkeit," Kantstudien, 1933. (The author corrected the translation in 1957), published in What is Justice? (1957)”

The mark of Platonic philosophy is a radical dualism. The Platonic world is not one of unity; and the abyss which in many ways results from this bifurcation appears in innumerable forms. It is not one, but two worlds, which Plato sees when with the eyes of his soul he envisages a transcendent, spaceless, and timeless realm of the Idea, the thing-in-itself, the true, absolute reality of tranquil be

“Law is an order of human behavior. An “order” is a system of rules. Law is not, as it is sometimes said, a rule. It is a set of rules having the kind of unity we understand by a system. It is impossible to grasp the nature of law if we limit our attention to the single isolated rule.”

General Theory of Law and State (1949), I. The Concept of Law, A. Law and Justice, a. Human Behavior as the Objects of Rules

“General Theory of Law and State (1949), I. The Concept of Law, A. Law and Justice, a. Human Behavior as the Objects of Rules”

Law is an order of human behavior. An “order” is a system of rules. Law is not, as it is sometimes said, a rule. It is a set of rules having the kind of unity we understand by a system. It is impossible to grasp the nature of law if we limit our attention to the single isolated rule.

“What Is Justice?" (1952), published in What is Justice? (1957)”

Justice is primarily a possible, but not a necessary, quality of a social order regulating the mutual relations of men. Only secondarily it is a virtue of man, since a man is just, if his behavior conforms to the norms of a social order supposed to be just. But what does it really mean to say that a social order is just? It means that this order regulates the behavior of men in a way satisfactory

“One of the most important elements of Christian religion is the idea that justice is an essential quality of God . Since God is the absolute, his justice must be absolute justice, that is to say, eternal and unchangeable. Only a religion whose deity is supposed to be just can play a role in social life. To attribute justice to the deity in order to make religion applicable to human relations implies a certain tendency of rationalizing something which, by its very nature, is irrational-the transcendental being, the religious authority, and its absolute qualities.”

The Idea of Justice in the Holy Scriptures", Rivista Juridicade la Universidadde Puerto Rico , Sept., 1952-April, 1953., published in What is Justice? (1957)

“The Most Excellent Hugo Grotius His Three Books Treating of the Rights of War and Peace ... Translated Into English by W. Evats, B.D., p. 426”

So is there no kind of life more wicked than that of mercenary Souldiers, who without any respect had to the equity of the Cause, fight only for plunder and pay.

Attributed to Hugo Grotius:

“Even the will of an omnipotent being cannot change or abrogate the law of nature.”

Attributed to Hugo Grotius:

“The state is a perfect body of free men, united for the enjoyment of right and the common interest.”

Attributed to Hugo Grotius:

“Where the rights of war are unsettled, those of peace will be unstable.”

Attributed to Hugo Grotius:

“The sea is common to all men and cannot be the property of any one nation.”

“The just and urgent claims of ecology can be united to the claims for justice by the exploited person. Earth and poor humanity are exploited and destroyed simultaneously, by a capitalism whose criterion of the subsumption of technology is the growth of the rate of profit, and by a productivist Stalinism whose criterion was the growth of the rate of production, both of which are antiecological and anti-human systems.”

The Underside of Modernity: Apel, Ricoeur, Rorty, Taylor and the Philosophy of Liberation , as translated and edited by Eduardo Mendieta (1996) p .13

Attributed to Enrique Dussel:

“Philosophy of liberation begins from the underside of history.”

Attributed to Enrique Dussel:

“The Other is the absolute that breaks open the totality of the same.”

Attributed to Enrique Dussel:

“Ethics is the affirmation of the life of the Other.”

Attributed to Enrique Dussel:

“To philosophize from the periphery is to philosophize from the suffering of the oppressed.”

“Social movements for global democracy and justice should try not only to build on and create global legal and regulatory institutions, but also to expand possibilities for transnational association and public spheres.”

Inclusion and Democracy (2000), Ch. 7: Self-Determination and Global Democracy

“Responsibility for Justice (2014)”

A developer has bought the central-city apartment building where Sandy, a single mother, has been living with her two children; he plans to convert it into condominiums. … She looks in the newspaper and online for apartment rental advertisements, and she is shocked at the rents for one- and two-bedroom apartments. … Sandy searches for two months, with the eviction deadline looming over her. Finall

Attributed to Iris Marion Young:

“The five faces of oppression are exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence.”

Attributed to Iris Marion Young:

“Justice without recognition is incomplete.”

Attributed to Iris Marion Young:

“Difference is a resource, not a problem to be overcome.”

“Woman is born free and lives equal to man in her rights.”

Declaration of the Rights of Woman

“Marriage is a tomb of trust and love. The married woman can with impunity give bastards to her husband, and also give them the wealth which does not belong to them. The woman who is unmarried has only one feeble right; ancient and inhuman laws refuse to her for her children the impossibility on my part to try to give my sex an honorable and just consistency, I leave it to men to attain glory for dealing with this matter; but while we wait, the way can be prepared through national education, the restoration of morals, and conjugal conventions.”

Postscript

“Man, are you capable of being just? It is a woman who poses the question, you will not deprive her of that right at least. Tell me, what gives you sovereign over empire to oppress my sex? Your strength? Your talents?”

The Rights of Women

“Man alone has raised his exceptional circumstances to a principle. Bizarre, blind, bloated with science and degenerated - in a century of enlightenment and wisdom - into the crassest ignorance, he wants to command as a despot a sex which is in full possession of its intellectual faculties; he pretends to enjoy the Revolution and to claim his rights to equality in order to say nothing more about it.”

The Rights of Women

Attributed to Olympe de Gouges:

“If a woman has the right to mount the scaffold, she must equally have the right to mount the rostrum.”

“As Nozick acknowledges, a modern state should not feel morally constrained by property holdings which might have had a Lockean pedigree but in fact do not. In this regard it is interesting that one of the main uses of Lockean theory these days is in defending the property rights of indigenous people—where a literal claim is being made about who had first possession of a set of resources and about the need to rectify the injustices that accompanied their subsequent expropriation.”

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – "Property and Ownership

Attributed to Jeremy Waldron:

“Judicial review of legislation on rights is not the cure for democratic disagreement; it is one of its forms.”

Attributed to Jeremy Waldron:

“Hate speech is a public dignitary harm, not merely a private offense.”

Attributed to Jeremy Waldron:

“Basic equality is harder to defend than to assume; the philosophical work is mostly still to be done.”

Attributed to Jeremy Waldron:

“Rank, in the older meaning, has been generalized; we are all of equal rank now, or we are not equal at all.”

“Listen, then. I say justice is nothing other than what is advantageous for the stronger.”

Plato , Republic , 338c

Attributed to Thrasymachus:

“Justice is the advantage of the stronger.”

Attributed to Thrasymachus:

“Each form of government makes laws for its own benefit.”

Attributed to Thrasymachus:

“The strong rule and call it just.”

Attributed to Thrasymachus:

“Most people obey the laws because they cannot break them.”

Attributed to Cesare Beccaria:

“It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them.”

Attributed to Cesare Beccaria:

“The certainty of a punishment, even if moderate, will always make a stronger impression than the fear of one more terrible but combined with the hope of impunity.”

Attributed to Cesare Beccaria:

“Punishments should be in proportion to the crime.”

Attributed to Cesare Beccaria:

“The death penalty is neither a useful nor a necessary punishment.”

Attributed to Cesare Beccaria:

“Every act of authority of one man over another for which there is no absolute necessity is tyrannical.”