Justice - Quotes from Science Fiction

A lot of quotations carefully collected from a very big amount of books and divided by categories.

Have fun reading it, this is really interesting and breathtaking!

We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against.

- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1954)

''In a society of criminals,'' Shaeffer offered, ''the innocent man goes to jail.''

- Philip K. Dick, Solar Lottery (1955)

Right and wrong can sometimes be determined only through hindsight.

- Robert A. Heinlein, Tunnel in the Sky (1955)

Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give that to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.

- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Two Towers (1955)

It was right and proper to pity children, but Ruiz-Sanchez was beginning to believe that adults generally deserve any misfortune that they get.

- James Blish, A Case of Conscience (1958)

Be just and if you can't be just be arbitrary.

- William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch (1959)

The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law, they were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else; nobody was better looking than anybody else; nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else.

- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., ''Harrison Bergeson'' (1961)

unfair Term applied to advantages enjoyed by other people which we tried to cheat them out of and didn't manage.

- John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar (1968)

You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe.

- Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)

In a chaotic universe, who expects justice?

- Raylyn Moore, ''Trigononomy'' (1973)

Whenever someone uses the word ''justice,'' sooner or later there's going to be a split head or a broken heart.

- William Tenn, ''On Venus, HaveWe Got a Rabbi'' (1974)

No one is innocent. All are guilty.

- Ward Moore, ''Durance'' (1975)

There was a time you didn't have to earn the right to live! You had it - as a human being!

- Mary Gentle, ''The Harvest of Wolves'' (1984)

We were being told: the world isn't the place you think it is; it is neither rational nor just.

- George Turner, Drowning Towers (1987)

A wrong that cannot be repaired must be transcended.

- Ursula K. Le Guin, Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea (1990)

It's the love of right lures men to wrong.

- Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars (1992)

The world isn't fair, the universe isn't fair. Physics, chemistry and mathematics, they aren't fair. Or unfair, for that matter. Fairness is an idea, and only conscious creatures have ideas. That's us. We have ideas about right and wrong. We invent the idea of justice so that we can judge whether something is good or bad. We develop morality. We create rules to live by and call them laws, all to make life more fair.

- Iain M. Banks, The Business (1999)