Injustice

You are thus guilty of injustice toward as many as you might have aided, and did not. ~ Basil of Caesarea

Injustice is the lack of or opposition to justice, either in reference to a particular event or act, or as a larger status quo.

Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love. ~ Julian Assange

INJUSTICE, n. A burden which of all those that we load upon others and carry ourselves is lightest in the hands and heaviest upon the back. ~ Ambrose Bierce

The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times. ~ Anthony Kennedy

Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · See also · External links

A

• Just as the American colonials' consciousness expanded from rebelling against unfair taxation in the 1760s to wide noble revolutionary goals touching on the inherent rights of mankind, so the Whiskey Rebellion guerrillas took on broader themes as injustice increasingly framed their consciousness. Once you start seeing injustice in one place, it's like taking off blinders- you start to see injustice everywhere, and how it is all connected.
  • Mark Ames, Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion: From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond (2005), p. 65

• Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love. In a modern economy it is impossible to seal oneself off from injustice. If we have brains or courage, then we are blessed and called on not to frit these qualities away, standing agape at the ideas of others, winning pissing contests, improving the efficiencies of the neocorporate state, or immersing ourselves in obscuranta, but rather to prove the vigor of our talents against the strongest opponents of love we can find... men in their prime, if they have convictions are tasked to act on them.
  • Julian Assange in "Witnessing", (3 January 2007)

B

• Sheila had long ago decided that she’d spend her time productively, rather than wasting energy on dealing with perceived injustices located in her—or someone else’s—past.
  • Christopher Barzak, Paranormal Romance (2013), reprinted in Rich Horton (ed.) The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2014 (p. 469)

• 'But whom do I treat unjustly,' you say, 'by keeping what is my own?' Tell me, what is your own? What did you bring into this life? From where did you receive it? It is as if someone were to take the first seat in the theater, then bar everyone else from attending, so that one person alone enjoys what is offered for the benefit of all in common — this is what the rich do. They seize common goods before others have the opportunity, then claim them as their own by right of preemption. For if we all took only what was necessary to satisfy our own needs, giving the rest to those who lack, no one would be rich, no one would be poor, and no one would be in need.
  • Basil of Caesarea, "I Will Tear Down My Barns", in Saint Basil on Social Justice, edited and translated by C. P. Schroeder (2009), p. 69

• The bread you are holding back is for the hungry, the clothes you keep put away are for the naked, the shoes that are rotting away with disuse are for those who have none, the silver you keep buried in the earth is for the needy. You are thus guilty of injustice toward as many as you might have aided, and did not.
  • Basil of Caesarea, "I Will Tear Down My Barns", in Saint Basil on Social Justice, edited and translated by C. P. Schroeder (2009), p. 70

• INJUSTICE, n. A burden which of all those that we load upon others and carry ourselves is lightest in the hands and heaviest upon the back.
  • Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

C

• When one has been threatened with a great injustice, one accepts a smaller as a favour.
  • Jane Welsh Carlyle, Letters and memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle‎ (1887), p. 45 - Journal Entry, November 25, 1855.

D

• Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted.
  • Frederick Douglass, Speech at Canandaigua, New York, August 3, 1857

• We have failed to bring justice. We cannot build the future on injustice.
  • F. W. de Klerk, on The Washington Journal of C-SPAN (11 June 1999)

F

• Injustice has a very dangerous ripple effect that must be combated right from the beginning. Imagine society as a pond disturbed by a pebble thrown into its still waters. The ripples created by this disturbance represent the far-reaching consequences of injustice. When a group is denied basic rights or faces [unreasonable] discrimination, the impact extends beyond the immediate targets. A ripple effect ensues, affecting neighboring communities and eventually damaging the entire social landscape.
  Grave injustices go on persisting everywhere around the world, including in democracies. Even if it is to a lesser extent than in totalitarian, dictatorial or autocratic regimes, it should never be underestimated or disregarded. That is the reason why social justice is increasingly put at the centre of international, national and regional policy agendas.
  • Willy Fautré, "Justice for Tai Ji Men Is Justice for All", Bitter Winter (February 2024)

G

• Saying "no" to injustice is the ultimate declaration of hope.
  • Amy Goodman Conclusion, Standing Up To the Madness: Ordinary Heroes In Extraordinary Times with David Goodman (2008)

• If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine.
  • Che Guevara, as quoted in The Quotable Rebel : Political Quotations for Dangerous Times (2005) by Teishan Latner, p. 112.

• Above all, try always to be able to feel deeply any injustice committed against any person in any part of the world. It is the most beautiful quality of a revolutionary.
  • Che Guevara, "Last Letter from Papa", Letter to all of his children written sometime in 1965, to be read in the event of his death.

H

• First, then, a woman will or won’t, depend on ’t;
  If she will do ’t, she will; and there ’s an end on ’t.
  But if she won’t, since safe and sound your trust is,
  Fear is affront, and jealousy injustice.
  • Aaron Hill, Zara, Epilogue (1735).

• To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues.
  • Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651), pt. I, Ch. 13.

• Intemperance is naturally punished with diseases; rashness, with mischance; injustice, with violence of enemies; pride, with ruin; cowardice, with oppression; and rebellion, with slaughter.
  • Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651), pt. II, Ch. 31.

• Feeling that the world is wrong does not necessarily mean that we have a picture of a utopia to put in its place. Nor does is necessarily mean a romantic, some-day-my-prince-will-come idea that, although things are wrong now, one day we shall come to a true world, a promised land, a happy ending. We need no promise of a happy ending to justify our rejection of a world we feel to be wrong.
  • John Holloway, Change the World Without Taking Power (2002)

• How unjust is Nemesis? How often does good come from evil and evil from good? Does not deceit often lead one to the pinnacle of success, while the reward for honesty and sober living is sometimes nothing but failure and despair?
  • Errol Holmes, Flannelled Foolishness (1957), Ch. 8.

• We are raised to believe that breaking the law is wrong and following the law is right. But what if the law itself is a miscarriage of justice, crafted by those more interested in [keeping political power] than in [encouraging] fairness?
  …do we have no choice but to adhere to a system that is proven to be unjust? Or do we have the right to object?
  …One of the greatest dangers of a system pretending to be just, is that [the] citizens come to accept the system's injustices as [a part of] the norm. Over time, they begin to believe that only the state apparatus [and all those who enforce its written rules and unwritten rules] can implement justice, and that questioning or opposing the justice system makes them criminals or bad citizens [or bad people].
  • Caroline Hören, "When Injustice Becomes Law, Resistance Becomes Duty", The Divine Just State (July 2024)
  • Curator's Note: The Divine Just State is an online magazine of the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light (AROPL), a Shia Islam-based new religious movement that is not to be confused with the Sunni Islam-based Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at (AMJ).

K

• The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times. The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning. When new insight reveals discord between the Constitution’s central protections and a received legal stricture, a claim to liberty must be addressed.
  • Anthony Kennedy, Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U. S. ____, (2015), majority opinion.

• Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
  • Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963).

• Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
  • Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963).

L

• I know there is a God, and that He hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that His hand is in it. If he has a place and work for me—and I think He has—I believe I am ready.
  • Attributed to Abraham Lincoln in Joseph Gilbert Holland, The Life of Abraham Lincoln (1886), p. 237; reported as unverified in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989). This comment was alleged to have been made in a private conversation with Newton Bateman, superintendent of public instruction for the state of Illinois, a few days before the election of 1860. During the election of 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy recited this in a speech to the United Steelworkers of America convention, Atlantic City, New Jersey (September 19, 1960), as reported in Freedom of Communications (1961), final report of the Committee on Commerce, United States Senate, part 1, p. 286. Senate Rept. 87–994. As president, Kennedy used a variation of these words at the 10th annual presidential prayer breakfast (March 1, 1962). Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1962, p. 176.

M

• Injustice we worship; all that lifts us out of the miseries of life is the sublime fruit of injustice. Every immortal deed was an act of fearful injustice; the world of grandeur, of triumph, of courage, of lofty aspiration, was built up on injustice. Man would not be man but for injustice.
  • George Moore, Confessions of a Young Man (1886), ch. 10.

• Avoid cruelty and injustice for, on the Day of Judgment, the same will turn into several darknesses; and guard yourselves against miserliness; for this has ruined nations who lived before you.
  • Muhammad, Riyadh-us-Salaheen, Hadith 203.

• In the name of God, I put my trust in God. O God, I seek refuge in Thee lest I stray or be led astray or cause injustice or suffer injustice or do wrong or have wrong done to me!
  • Muhammad, Fiqh-us-Sunnah, Volume 2, Number 67b.

• People, beware of injustice, for injustice shall be darkness on the Day of Judgment.
  • Muhammad, narrated in Mosnad Ahmad, #5798, and Saheeh Al-Bukhari, #2447.

P

• India seems to have lost that urge to consistently relate to injustice as an assault on democracy. Be it plight of migrants or minorities, their failure to strike wider chord tells truths about us. [...] There was no public outcry over this human tragedy and the victims themselves chose to mostly suffer in silence. They may have grumbled, or cursed under their breath, but our democracy does not seem to have encouraged them to really assert or demand their rights. Not just migrants, minorities too have been subjected to the untold misery of being excluded from the idea of the public. And more routinely, women, rural poor, Dalits and Adivasis have been objects of humiliation.
  • Suhas Palshikar during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic in India, Will there be a George Floyd moment in India’s public life? (June 11, 2020), The Indian Express

R

• Widespread injustice never fades away. It ferments and stinks and eventually bursts into bloody flowers.
  • Paul Rusesabagina, An Ordinary Man (2006), Chapter 11

S

• It is fair to assume that Parisians would not have stormed the Bastille, Gandhi would not have challenged the empire on which the sun used not to set, Martin Luther King would not have fought white supremacy in ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave’, without their sense of manifest injustices that could be overcome. They were not trying to achieve a perfectly just world (even if there were any agreement on what that would be like), but they did want to remove clear injustices to the extent they could.
  • Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice (2009), Preface

• Tragedy springs from outrage; it protests at the conditions of life. It carries in it the possibilities of disorder, for all tragic poets have something of the rebelliousness of Antigone. Goethe, on the contrary, loathed disorder. He once said that he preferred injustice, signifying by that cruel assertion not his support for reactionary political ideals, but his conviction that injustice is temporary and reparable whereas disorder destroys the very possibilities of human progress. Again, this is an anti-tragic view; in tragedy it is the individual instance of injustice that infirms the general pretence of order. One Hamlet is enough to convict a state of rottenness.
  • George Steiner, The Death of Tragedy (1961), ch. V (p. 167).

T

• Men's indignation, it seems, is more excited by legal wrong than by violent wrong; the first looks like being cheated by an equal, the second like being compelled by a superior.
  • Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. Richard Crawley (1876), book 1, p. 50.

• 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.
  • Desmond Tutu, as quoted in Ending Poverty As We Know It : Guaranteeing a Right to a Job at a Living Wage (2003) by William P. Quigley, p. 8.

• A promise which the promisor should reasonably expect to induce action or forbearance on the part of the promisee or a third person and which does induce such action or forbearance is binding if injustice can be avoided only by enforcement of the promise.
  • Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 90(1) [1981].

U

• Burning outside the fire is worse than burning inside [the fire].
  • A proverb of the Uyghurs, as mentioned at "Uyghur Stories: More than 5 Years in Jail Just for “Listening” to Criticism of the Authorities", Bitter Winter (May 22, 2024)

See also

• Justice
• Oppression
• Social inequality
• Social injustice
• United Nations

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Injustice on Wikipedia
• The dictionary definition of injustice on Wiktionary