“
I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight, I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.
”
”
Theodore Parker (The present aspect of slavery in America and the immediate duty of the North: a speech delivered in the hall of the State house, before the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Convention, on Friday night, January 29, 1858)
“
Men do, I've found, accept the most errant nonsense from a well dressed woman
”
”
Laurie R. King (Justice Hall (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, #6))
“
I did not do it. Yet now I wish I had.’ He turned to face the hall, that sea of pale faces. ‘I wish I had enough poison for you all. You make me sorry that I am not the monster you would have me be, yet there it is. I am innocent, but I will get no justice here.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3))
“
Nothing is random, nor will anything ever be, whether a long string of perfectly blue days that begin and end in golden dimness, the most seemingly chaotic political acts, the rise of a great city, the crystalline structure of a gem that has never seen the light, the distributions of fortune, what time the milkman gets up, the position of the electron, or the occurrence of one astonishing frigid winter after another. Even electrons, supposedly the paragons of unpredictability, are tame and obsequious little creatures that rush around at the speed of light, going precisely where they are supposed to go. They make faint whistling sounds that when apprehended in varying combinations are as pleasant as the wind flying through a forest, and they do exactly as they are told. Of this, one is certain.
And yet, there is a wonderful anarchy, in that the milkman chooses when to arise, the rat picks the tunnel into which he will dive when the subway comes rushing down the track from Borough Hall, and the snowflake will fall as it will. How can this be? If nothing is random, and everything is predetermined, how can there be free will? The answer to that is simple. Nothing is predetermined, it is determined, or was determined, or will be determined. No matter, it all happened at once, in less than an instant, and time was invented because we cannot comprehend in one glance the enormous and detailed canvas that we have been given - so we track it, in linear fashion piece by piece. Time however can be easily overcome; not by chasing the light, but by standing back far enough to see it all at once. The universe is still and complete. Everything that ever was is; everything that ever will be is - and so on, in all possible combinations. Though in perceiving it we image that it is in motion, and unfinished, it is quite finished and quite astonishingly beautiful. In the end, or rather, as things really are, any event, no matter how small, is intimately and sensibly tied to all others. All rivers run full to the sea; those who are apart are brought together; the lost ones are redeemed; the dead come back to life; the perfectly blue days that have begun and ended in golden dimness continue, immobile and accessible; and, when all is perceived in such a way as to obviate time, justice becomes apparent not as something that will be, but something that is.
”
”
Mark Helprin (Winter's Tale)
“
The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
”
”
Theodore Parker (The present aspect of slavery in America and the immediate duty of the North: a speech delivered in the hall of the State house, before the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Convention, on Friday night, January 29, 1858)
“
I’m an executioner, Leta, hence my Demon nickname. They send me in to take the heads off people and gods who’ve stepped over the line, usually only because someone has PMS. You want justice, Themis’s office is down the hall on the left. You want death and dismemberment, I’m your man…or rather god. (Deimos)
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Upon the Midnight Clear (Dark-Hunter, #12; Dream-Hunter, #2))
“
LONDON. Michaelmas Term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snow-flakes — gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another’s umbrellas in a general infection of ill-temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if the day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.
Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little ’prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon, and hanging in the misty clouds.
Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as the sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by husbandman and ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours before their time — as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling look.
The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln’s Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.
”
”
Charles Dickens (Bleak House)
“
Kid Flash: Sorry. First time at the Hall. I'm a little overwhelmed.
Robin: You're overwhelmed. Freeze was underwhelmed. Why isn't anyone just whelmed?
”
”
Young Justice
“
Numerous are the academic chairs, but rare are wise and noble teachers. Numerous and large are the lecture halls, but far from numerous the young people who genuinely thirst for truth and justice. Numerous are the wares that nature produces by the dozen, but her choice products are few.
We all know that, so why complain? Was it not always thus and will it not always thus remain? Certainly, and one must take what nature gives as one finds it. But there is also such a thing as a spirit of the times, an attitude of mind characteristic of a particular generation, which is passed on from individual to individual and gives its distinctive mark to a society. Each of us has to his little bit toward transforming this spirit of the times.
”
”
Albert Einstein
“
Ma'alesh; no matter; never mind; what can you do but accept things as they are? Ma'alesh, your pot overturned in the fire; ma'alesh, your prize mare died; ma'alesh, you lost all your possessions and half your family. The word was the everyday essence of Islam - which itself, after all, means "submission.
”
”
Laurie R. King (Justice Hall (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, #6))
“
Life has ill-prepared me for finding any enjoyment in a press of merrymakers.
”
”
Laurie R. King (Justice Hall (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, #6))
“
If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected—those, precisely, who need the law’s protection the most!—and listens to their testimony. Ask any Mexican, any Puerto Rican, any black man, any poor person—ask the wretched how they fare in the halls of justice, and then you will know, not whether or not the country is just, but whether or not it has any love for justice, or any concept of it.
”
”
Eddie S. Glaude Jr. (Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own)
“
this is only the beginning. Many die, many kill their bodies and souls, but they cannot kill the justice of God, even they cannot kill the eternal spirit. From their very degradation that spirit will rise up to demand of the world compassion and justice
”
”
Radclyffe Hall (The Well of Loneliness)
“
Inside each of us resides the truth,” I began, “the absolute truth. But sometimes the truth is hidden in a hall of mirrors. Sometimes we believe we are viewing the real thing, when in fact we are viewing a facsimile, a distortion. As I listen to this trial, I am reminded of the climactic scene of a James Bond film, The Man with the Golden Gun. James Bond escaped his hall of mirrors by breaking the glass, shattering the illusions, until only the true villain stood before him. We, too, must shatter the mirrors. We must look into ourselves and root out the distortions until that thing which we know in our hearts is perfect and true, stands before us. Only then will justice be served.
”
”
Garth Stein (The Art of Racing in the Rain)
“
...didn't see what good all the talk about justice was if nobody tried to help when things got risky.
”
”
Teri Hall (The Line (The Line, #1))
“
Any literary description I could give would never be able to do justice to the horrendous sight.
”
”
Bobby Hall (Supermarket)
“
few days after Vryke’s death, a lawyer arrived at the San Francisco medical examiner’s office in the Hall of Justice. She was
”
”
Rick Mofina (Blood of Others (Tom Reed and Walt Sydowski, #3))
“
She lit up as she descended the stairs to the hall, knowing that she would not have dared had her father been at home. He had precise ideas about where a woman should be seen smoking: not in the street, or any public place, not on entering a room, not standing up, and only when offered, never from her own supply - notions as self evident to him as natural justice. Three years among the sophisticates of Girton had not provided her with courage to confront him.
”
”
Ian McEwan (Atonement)
“
I felt instantly at home, and wanted only to dismiss Alistair, along with the rest of Justice Hall, that I might have a closer look at the shelves.I had to content myself instead with a strolling perusal, my hands locked behind my back to keep them from reaching out for Le Morte D'Arthur, Caxton 1485 or the delicious little red-and-gilt Bestiary, MS Circa 1250 or.... If I took one down, I should be lost. So I looked, like a hungry child in a sweet shop, and trailed out on my guide's heels with one longing backward glance.
”
”
Laurie R. King (Justice Hall (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, #6))
“
You can’t win. The game is fixed. So when they say, “Why do you burn down the community? Why do you burn down your own neighborhood?” It’s not ours. We don’t own anything. We don’t own anything. [...] There’s a social contract that we all have, that if you steal, or if I steal, then the person who is the authority comes in and they fix the situation. But the person who fixes the situation is killing us. So the social contract is broken. And if the social contract is broken, why the f*** do I give a shit about burning the f***ing Football Hall of Fame, about burning a f***ing Target?
”
”
Kimberly Jones
“
How dare you?' Bayar began, but his voice had lost some of its force. 'How dare you come into this sacred hall, flinging accusations?'
'I have not yet made any accusations,' Willo said. 'Perhaps it is our own guilt clamoring in your ears.
”
”
Cinda Williams Chima (The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms, #4))
“
Inside each of us resides the truth, the absolute truth. But sometimes the truth is hidden in a hall of mirrors. Sometimes we believe we are viewing the read thing, when in fact we are viewing a facsimile, a distortion...We too, must shatter the mirrors. We must look into ourselves and root out the distortions until that thing which we know in our hearts is perfect and true, stands before us. Only then will justice be served.
”
”
Garth Stein (The Art of Racing in the Rain)
“
Jenna had tried to cheer me up that morning, saying, "At least you have it with a hot guy."
"Archer isn't hot anymore," I'd fired back. "He tried to kill me, and his girlfriend is Satan."
But I have to admit that as we stood beside each other on the cellar steps and listened to the Vandy ramble on about what we were supposed to do down there, I couldn't help but sneak sideways glances at him and notice that, homicidal tendencies and evil girlfriends aside, he was still hot. As usual,his tie was loose and his shirt-sleeves were rolled up. He was watching the Vandy with this bored, vaguely amused look, arms crossed over his chest.
That pose did most excellent things for his chest and arms.How unfair was it that Elodie of all people got that as a boyfriend? I mean, where is the justice when-"
"Miss Mercer!" the Vandy barked, and I jumped high enough to nearly lose my balance.
I clutched the banister next to me, and Archer caught my other elbow.
Then he winked, and I immediately turned my attention back to the Vandy like she was the most fascinating person I'd ever seen.
"Do you need me to repeat anything, Miss Mercer?" she sneered.
"N-no. I got it," I stammered.
She stared at me for a minute. I think she was trying to come up with a witty put-down.But the Vandy,like most mean people, was dumb, so in the end, she just sort of growled and pushed between me and Archer to stalk up the stairs.
"One hour!" she called over her shoulder.
The ancient door didn't so much as creak as scream in pain as she pushed it closed.
”
”
Rachel Hawkins (Hex Hall (Hex Hall, #1))
“
Nothing but this: I did not do it. Yet now I wish I had.” He turned to face the hall, that sea of pale faces. “I wish I had enough poison for you all. You make me sorry that I am not the monster you would have me be, yet there it is. I am innocent, but I will get no justice here. You leave me no choice but to appeal to the gods. I demand trial by battle.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Storm of Swords: Part 2 Blood and Gold (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3 part 2))
“
Not sure that does it justice anymore...I worship, no, I live, because you make my heartbeat
”
”
S.E. Hall (Pretty Instinct (Finally Found, #1))
“
I find folk wisdom to be a somewhat overrated commodity,” Holmes retorted. “It generally fails to take into account the workings of cause and effect.
”
”
Laurie R. King (Justice Hall (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes #6))
“
Ask any Mexican, any Puerto Rican, any black man, any poor person - ask the wretched how they fare in the halls of justice, and then you will know, not whether or not the country is just, but whether or not it has any love for justice, or any concept of it. It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.
”
”
James Baldwin (No Name in the Street)
“
You speak good words, child, but sometimes what lies within is much darker. The line between justice and revenge is then. Justice is order; revenge is chaos. If revenge is your innermost desire, you will be destroyed upon entering into the hall
”
”
Amira Aly (Egypt: The Uprising (The Battle for Maat, #1))
“
If he's not watering his ale, he's running illegal beasts on the common, if he's not despoiling the common he's assaulting an officer of the peace, if he's not drunk he's dead drunk, and if he's not dead before his time there's no justice in this world.
”
”
Hilary Mantel (Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell, #1))
“
As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor; – let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of his own, and his children's liberty. Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap – let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; – let it be written in Primmers, spelling books, and in Almanacs; – let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.
While ever a state of feeling, such as this, shall universally, or even, very generally prevail throughout the nation, vain will be every effort, and fruitless every attempt, to subvert our national freedom.
”
”
Abraham Lincoln
“
A vampire?” MacAullif said.
There is no way I can do justice to the skepticism, sarcasm, and mistrust with which MacAullif managed to imbue the word.
“That’s right.”
“You want me to find a vampire?”
“I’d be relieved if you could. I’m afraid he might be dead.
”
”
Parnell Hall (Crimes by Moonlight: Mysteries from the Dark Side)
“
I will love you with no regard to the actions of our enemies or the jealousies of actors. I will love you with no regard to the outrage of certain parents or the boredom of certain friends. I will love you no matter what is served in the world’s cafeterias or what game is played at each and every recess. I will love you no matter how many fire drills we are all forced to endure, and no matter what is drawn upon the blackboard in a blurring, boring chalk. I will love you no matter how many mistakes I make when trying to reduce fractions, and no matter how difficult it is to memorize the periodic table. I will love you no matter what your locker combination was, or how you decided to spend your time during study hall. I will love you no matter how your soccer team performed in the tournament or how many stains I received on my cheerleading uniform. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you if you cut your hair and I will love you if you cut the hair of others. I will love you if you abandon your baticeering, and I will love you if you retire from the theater to take up some other, less dangerous occupation. I will love you if you drop your raincoat on the floor instead of hanging it up and I will love you if you betray your father. I will love you even if you announce that the poetry of Edgar Guest is the best in the world and even if you announce that the work of Zilpha Keatley Snyder is unbearably tedious. I will love you if you abandon the theremin and take up the harmonica and I will love you if you donate your marmosets to the zoo and your tree frogs to M. I will love you as the starfish loves a coral reef and as kudzu loves trees, even if the oceans turn to sawdust and the trees fall in the forest without anyone around to hear them. I will love you as the pesto loves the fetuccini and as the horseradish loves the miyagi, as the tempura loves the ikura and the pepperoni loves the pizza. I will love you as the manatee loves the head of lettuce and as the dark spot loves the leopard, as the leech loves the ankle of a wader and as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you as the doctor loves his sickest patient and a lake loves its thirstiest swimmer. I will love you as the beard loves the chin, and the crumbs love the beard, and the damp napkin loves the crumbs, and the precious document loves the dampness in the napkin, and the squinting eye of the reader loves the smudged print of the document, and the tears of sadness love the squinting eye as it misreads what is written. I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat, and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms. I will love you as a child loves to overhear the conversations of its parents, and the parents love the sound of their own arguing voices, and as the pen loves to write down the words these voices utter in a notebook for safekeeping. I will love you as a shingle loves falling off a house on a windy day and striking a grumpy person across the chin, and as an oven loves malfunctioning in the middle of roasting a turkey. I will love you as an airplane loves to fall from a clear blue sky and as an escalator loves to entangle expensive scarves in its mechanisms. I will love you as a wet paper towel loves to be crumpled into a ball and thrown at a bathroom ceiling and an eraser loves to leave dust in the hairdos of the people who talk too much. I will love you as a taxi loves the muddy splash of a puddle and as a library loves the patient tick of a clock. I will love you as a thief loves a gallery and as a crow loves a murder, as a cloud loves bats and as a range loves braes. I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong.
”
”
Lemony Snicket (The Beatrice Letters)
“
The child was left alone to die in the hallway. Here, in the dawn, was mortality itself. In the city were places to fall from which one could never emerge -- dark dreams and slow death, the death of children, suffering without grace or redemption, ultimate and eternal loss. The memory of the child stayed with Peter. But that was not to be the end of it, for reality went around in a twisting ring. Even the irredeemable would be redeemed, and there was a balance for everything. There had to be.
The old man said, "Nothing is random, nor will anything ever be, whether a long string of perfectly blue days that begin and end in golden dimness, the most seemingly chaotic political acts, the rise of a great city, the crystalline structure of a gem that has never seen the light, the distributions of fortune, what time the milkman gets up, or the position of the electron. Even electrons, supposedly the paragons of unpredictability, do exactly as they are told. Of this, one is certain.
And yet, there is a wonderful anarchy, in that the milkman chooses when to arise, the rat picks the tunnel into which he will dive when the subway comes rushing down the track from Borough Hall, and the snowflake will fall as it will. How can this be? If nothing is random, and everything is predetermined, how can there be free will?
The answer to that is simple. Nothing is predetermined, it is determined, or was determined, or will be determined. No matter, it all happened at once, in less than an instant, and time was invented because we cannot comprehend in one glance the enormous and detailed canvas that we have been given - so we track it, in linear fashion piece by piece. Time however can be easily overcome; not by chasing the light, but by standing back far enough to see it all at once.
The universe is still and complete. Everything that ever was, is. Everything that ever will be, is. In all possible combinations. Though we imagine that it is in motion and unfinished, it is quite finished and quite astonishingly beautiful. So any event is intimately and sensibly tied to all others. All rivers run full to the sea; those who are apart are brought together; the lost ones are redeemed; the dead come back to life; the perfectly blue days that have begun and ended in golden dimness continue, immobile and accessible.
And, when all is perceived in such a way as to obviate time, justice becomes apparent not as something that will be, but something that is.
”
”
Mark Helprin (Winter's Tale)
“
Let [the Constitution] be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges, let it be written in primers, in spelling books and in almanacs, let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation.
”
”
Abraham Lincoln
“
In the twentieth century, with its eighteen American presidents, Lyndon Baines Johnson was the greatest champion that black Americans and Mexican-Americans and indeed all Americans of color had in the White House, the greatest champion they had in all the halls of government. With the single exception of Lincoln, he was the greatest champion with a white skin that they had in the history of the Republic. He was to become the lawmaker for the poor and the downtrodden and the oppressed. He was to be the bearer of at least a measure of social justice to those to whom social justice had so long been denied, the restorer of at least a measure of dignity to those who so desperately needed to be given some dignity, the redeemer of the promises made to them by America. He was to be the President who, above all Presidents save Lincoln, codified compassion, the President who wrote mercy and justice into the statute books by which America was governed.
”
”
Robert A. Caro (Master of the Senate (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #3))
“
Already the people murmur that I am your enemy
because they say that in verse I give the world your me.
They lie, Julia de Burgos. They lie, Julia de Burgos.
Who rises in my verses is not your voice. It is my voice
because you are the dressing and the essence is me;
and the most profound abyss is spread between us.
You are the cold doll of social lies,
and me, the virile starburst of the human truth.
You, honey of courtesan hypocrisies; not me;
in all my poems I undress my heart.
You are like your world, selfish; not me
who gambles everything betting on what I am.
You are only the ponderous lady very lady;
not me; I am life, strength, woman.
You belong to your husband, your master; not me;
I belong to nobody, or all, because to all, to all
I give myself in my clean feeling and in my thought.
You curl your hair and paint yourself; not me;
the wind curls my hair, the sun paints me.
You are a housewife, resigned, submissive,
tied to the prejudices of men; not me;
unbridled, I am a runaway Rocinante
snorting horizons of God's justice.
You in yourself have no say; everyone governs you;
your husband, your parents, your family,
the priest, the dressmaker, the theatre, the dance hall,
the auto, the fine furnishings, the feast, champagne,
heaven and hell, and the social, "what will they say."
Not in me, in me only my heart governs,
only my thought; who governs in me is me.
You, flower of aristocracy; and me, flower of the people.
You in you have everything and you owe it to everyone,
while me, my nothing I owe to nobody.
You nailed to the static ancestral dividend,
and me, a one in the numerical social divider,
we are the duel to death who fatally approaches.
When the multitudes run rioting
leaving behind ashes of burned injustices,
and with the torch of the seven virtues,
the multitudes run after the seven sins,
against you and against everything unjust and inhuman,
I will be in their midst with the torch in my hand.
”
”
Julia de Burgos Jack Agüero Translator
“
Kid Flash: Have all four sidekicks ever been in the same place at the same time?Speedy: Don’t call us sidekicks. Not after today.Kid Flash: First time at the Hall. I’m a little overwhelmed.
Robin: You’re overwhelmed, Freeze was underwhelmed-why isn’t anyone ever just whelmed?
[They enter the Hall]
Robin: Oh, maybe that’s why.
”
”
Young Justice
“
There howl your pagans; where you ever find them, next door to you; under the long-flung shadow, and the snug patronizing lee of churches. For by some curious fatality, as it is often noted of your metropolitan freebooters that they ever encamp around the halls of justice, so sinners, gentlemen, most abound in holiest vicinities.
”
”
Herman Melville
“
His eyes met hers. Memory had not done their blue justice, nor the warmth that lay beneath their beauty, like some undersea garden. “He was the joy of my life.
”
”
Alexis Hall (A Lady for a Duke)
“
In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls - Lenny Bruce
”
”
Andy Thibault
“
I’m no criminal, and your Order doesn’t serve my gods or any semblance of justice. To the shadows of Ashemohn with your Shytahn and those demons you worship.
”
”
Aaron-Michael Hall (Kurintor Nyusi)
“
[t]he three fates that haunt the halls of justice of scandalous, frivolous and vexatious.
”
”
Thomas Pride (King and Country)
“
In reflecting back the respect others had for the name and the title, this child had already begun to take into himself those qualities which justified the respect.
”
”
Laurie R. King (Justice Hall (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, #6))
“
I do three weeks at the Hall of Justice Jail. It's a potent crime primer. I'm the geek that all the pro thugs disdain. I observe them up close. It's the '60s. It's social-grievance-as-justification-for-bad-actions time. My cellmates have sadness raps down. I gain a notch on my crime-as-continuing-circumstance notion. Crime is large-scale individual moral default.
That means you, motherfucker.
”
”
James Ellroy (The Best American Crime Writing 2005 (Best American Crime Reporting))
“
When the two of us were at last free and clear of our past entanglements, social and professional, Sara and I were married here, at the Town Hall, by a justice of the peace who was a distant cousin of my grandmother,
”
”
Michael Chabon (Wonder Boys)
“
Stories were made up and spun in the evenings in rooms smelling of melting lard and fried onions, village halls, smoky taverns, roadhouses, crofts, tar kilns, forest homesteads and border watchtowers. Tales were spun and told. About war. About heroism and chivalry. About friendship and hatred. About wickedness and betrayal. About faithful and genuine love, about the love that always triumphs. About the crimes and punishments that always befall criminals. About justice that is always just.
About truth, which always rises to the surface like oil.
Tales were told; people rejoiced in them. Enjoyed the fairy-tale fictions. Because, indeed, all around, in real life, things happened entirely back to front.
”
”
Andrzej Sapkowski (Pani Jeziora (Saga o Wiedźminie, #5))
“
Whenever a government produces a method of extorting income for a "public service" it will endeavor to make that service into such a large bureaucracy that not only will it become an excuse for ever larger funding, but that it will be made so large and all encompassing, so as to be beyond removal from within that society. In the case of the American Justice system, the eventuality is that all citizens will be criminalized for the benefit of the system and not for the society for which it purports to protect.
”
”
D.B.Hall from the book Tirade of Dave
“
If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policeman, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected - those, precisely, who need the law’s protection the most! - and listens to their testimony. Ask any Mexican, any Puerto Rican, any black man, any poor person - ask the wretched how they fare in the halls of justice, and then you will know, not whether or not the country is just, but whether or not it has any love for justice, or any concept of it.
”
”
James Baldwin (No Name in the Street)
“
The doctors cannot make the ignorant think, cannot hope to bring home the sufferings of millions; only one of ourselves can someday do that...It will need great courage but it will be done, because all things must work toward ultimate good; there is no real wastage and no destruction.
”
”
Radclyffe Hall
“
Our world cannot be complete without you, and without hearing what you have to say. True justice cannot exist without compassion; compassion cannot exist without understanding. But no one will understand you unless you speak, and are able to speak clearly (Sister Janet to the students, page 155).
”
”
Mark Salzman (True Notebooks: A Writer's Year at Juvenile Hall)
“
A mood of constructive criticism being upon me, I propose forthwith that the method of choosing legislators now prevailing in the United States be abandoned and that the method used in choosing juries be substituted. That is to say, I propose that the men who make our laws be chosen by chance and against their will, instead of by fraud and against the will of all the rest of us, as now...
...that the names of all the men eligible in each assembly district be put into a hat (or, if no hat can be found that is large enough, into a bathtub), and that a blind moron, preferably of tender years, be delegated to draw out one...
The advantages that this system would offer are so vast and obvious that I hesitate to venture into the banality of rehearsing them. It would in the first place, save the commonwealth the present excessive cost of elections, and make political campaigns unnecessary. It would in the second place, get rid of all the heart-burnings that now flow out of every contest at the polls, and block the reprisals and charges of fraud that now issue from the heart-burnings. It would, in the third place, fill all the State Legislatures with men of a peculiar and unprecedented cast of mind – men actually convinced that public service is a public burden, and not merely a private snap. And it would, in the fourth and most important place, completely dispose of the present degrading knee-bending and trading in votes, for nine-tenths of the legislators, having got into office unwillingly, would be eager only to finish their duties and go home, and even those who acquired a taste for the life would be unable to increase the probability, even by one chance in a million, of their reelection.
The disadvantages of the plan are very few, and most of them, I believe, yield readily to analysis. Do I hear argument that a miscellaneous gang of tin-roofers, delicatessen dealers and retired bookkeepers, chosen by hazard, would lack the vast knowledge of public affairs needed by makers of laws? Then I can only answer (a) that no such knowledge is actually necessary, and (b) that few, if any, of the existing legislators possess it...
Would that be a disservice to the state? Certainly not. On the contrary, it would be a service of the first magnitude, for the worst curse of democracy, as we suffer under it today, is that it makes public office a monopoly of a palpably inferior and ignoble group of men. They have to abase themselves to get it, and they have to keep on abasing themselves in order to hold it. The fact reflects in their general character, which is obviously low. They are men congenitally capable of cringing and dishonorable acts, else they would not have got into public life at all. There are, of course, exceptions to that rule among them, but how many? What I contend is simply that the number of such exceptions is bound to be smaller in the class of professional job-seekers than it is in any other class, or in the population in general. What I contend, second, is that choosing legislators from that populations, by chance, would reduce immensely the proportion of such slimy men in the halls of legislation, and that the effects would be instantly visible in a great improvement in the justice and reasonableness of the laws.
”
”
H.L. Mencken (A Mencken Chrestomathy)
“
You dreamed like all mothers do.
Until he began to speak aloud,
Your boy,
calling for justice in the market place,
Demanding integrity and fair play
in the courts and halls of business.
Declaring the Realm of God
Imminent,
Manifest . . .
Jesus leapt into the swelling crowds
like an axe into wood,
Uncompromising and unrelenting
in his passionate call
for peace and justice.
Jesus, your boy,
causing havoc in public,
critiquing and condemning
the status quo,
breaking rule after rule . . .
And with every speech,
with every act of defiance,
with every call to liberation,
with every amazing deed,
Your dreams of peace and liberation,
Your dreams of a secure old age,
Your dreams of grandchildren—
Evaporated.
”
”
Edwina Gateley (Soul Sisters: Women in Scripture Speak to Women Today)
“
The headmaster used to expound the meaning of school life in his sermons.15 Sherborne was not, he explained, entirely devoted to ‘opening the mind’, although ‘historically … this was the primary meaning of school.’ Indeed, said the headmaster, there was ‘constantly a danger of forgetting the original object of school.’ For the English public school had been consciously developed into what he called ‘a nation in miniature’. With a savage realism, it dispensed with the lip service paid to such ideas as free speech, equal justice and parliamentary democracy, and concentrated upon the fact of precedence and power. As the headmaster put it: In form-room and hall and dormitory, on the field and on parade, in your relations with us masters and in the scale of seniority among yourselves, you have become familiar with the ideas of authority and obedience, of cooperation and loyalty, of putting the house and the school above your personal desires … The great theme of the ‘scale of seniority’ was the balance of privilege and duty, itself reflecting the more worthy side of the British Empire. But this was a theme to which ‘opening the mind’ came as at best an irrelevance.
”
”
Andrew Hodges (Alan Turing: The Enigma)
“
Judge Sims called for a lunch recess until 1:00 P.M. The diner would bring over tuna fish, chicken salad, and ham sandwiches for the jurors, who would eat in the deliberation room. To be fair to the town's two eating establishments, the Dog-Gone Beer Hall would deliver hot dogs, chili, and shrimp po'boys on alternative days. They always brought something for the cat, too. Sunday Justice preferred the po'boys.
”
”
Delia Owens (Where the Crawdads Sing)
“
The men who pulled the triggers that killed 5 people here on the streets of Greensboro are dangerous men who must be brought to justice. But they are not the cause of our problem, they are the result. The real danger today comes from the people in high places, from the halls of congress to the board rooms of our big corporations, who are telling the white people that if their taxes are eating up their paychecks, it’s not because of our bloated military budget, but because of government programs that benefit black people; those people in high places who are telling white people that if young whites are unemployed it’s because blacks are getting all the jobs. Our problem is the people in power who are creating a scape goat mentality. That, that is what is creating the climate in which the Klan can grow in this country and that is what is creating the danger of a fascist movement in the 1980s in America.
”
”
Anne Braden
“
Bessie Lee must, I think, have been a girl of good natural capacity, for she was smart in all she did, and had a remarkable knack of narrative; so, at least, I judge from the impression made on me by her nursery tales. She was pretty too, if my recollections of her face and person are correct. I remember her as a slim young woman, with black hair, dark eyes, very nice features, and good, clear complexion; but she had a capricious and hasty temper, and indifferent ideas of principle or justice: still, such as she was, I preferred her to any one else at Gateshead Hall. It was the fifteenth
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre: The Original 1847 Unabridged and Complete Edition (Charlotte Brontë Classics))
“
I once had every hope,’ he says. ‘The world corrupts me, I think. Or perhaps it's just the weather. It pulls me down and makes me think like you, that one should shrink inside, down and down to a little point of light, preserving one's solitary soul like a flame under a glass. The spectacles of pain and disgrace I see around me, the ignorance, the unthinking vice, the poverty and the lack of hope, and oh, the rain – the rain that falls on England and rots the grain, puts out the light in a man's eye and the light of learning too, for who can reason if Oxford is a giant puddle and Cambridge is washing away downstream, and who will enforce the laws if the judges are swimming for their lives? Last week the people were rioting in York. Why would they not, with wheat so scarce, and twice the price of last year? I must stir up the justices to make examples, I suppose, otherwise the whole of the north will be out with billhooks and pikes, and who will they slaughter but each other? I truly believe I should be a better man if the weather were better. I should be a better man if I lived in a commonwealth where the sun shone and the citizens were rich and free. If only that were true, Master More, you wouldn't have to pray for me nearly as hard as you do.
”
”
Hilary Mantel (Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell, #1))
“
And I did find it, in an impressive organization called the Mind Body Awareness (MBA) Project. MBA was doing mindfulness work (both meditation and yoga) with kids in juvenile hall and getting some solid results. I had seen the data on how many kids in juvie have their own fair share of ACEs (one study that came out later on looked at more than sixty thousand young people in the Florida juvenile justice system and found that 97 percent had experienced at least one ACE category and 52 percent four or more), so I figured it would be a good fit. After I met with MBA’s executive director, Gabriel Kram, and heard his story, I was even more
”
”
Nadine Burke Harris (The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Trauma and Adversity)
“
I love peace, but it is because I love justice and not because I am afraid of war,” Roosevelt told the spellbound crowd. “I took the action I did in Panama because to have acted otherwise would have been both weak and wicked. I would have taken that action no matter what power had stood in the way. What I did was in the interest of all the world, and was particularly in the interests of Chile and of certain other South American countries. I was in accordance with the highest and strictest dictates of justice. If it were a matter to do over again, I would act precisely and exactly as I in very fact did act.” As these words rang through the hall, the audience leapt to its feet, cheering and applauding the Yankee imperialist.
”
”
Candice Millard (The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey)
“
When Libya fought against the Italian occupation, all the Arabs supported the Libyan mujahideen.
We Arabs never occupied any country.
Well, we occupied Andalusia unjustly, and they drove us out, but since then, we Arabs have not occupied any country.
It is our countries that are occupied.
Palestine is occupied, Iraq is occupied, and as for the UAE islands...
It is not in the best interest of the Arabs for hostility to develop between them and Iran, Turkey, or any of these nations.
By no means is it in our interest to turn Iran against us.
If there really is a problem, we should decide here to refer this issue to the international court of Justice.
This is the proper venue for the resolution of such problems.
We should decide to refer the issue of the disputed UAE islands to the International Court of Justice, and we should accept whatever it rules.
One time you say this is occupied Arab land, and then you say...
This is not clear, and it causes confusion.
80% of the people of the Gulf are Iranians.
The ruling families are Arab, but the rest are Iranian. The entire people is Iranian.
This is a mess.
Iran cannot be avoided.
Iran is a Muslim neighbour, and it is not in our interes to become enemies.
What is the reason for the invasion and destruction of Iraq, and for killing of one million Iraqis?
Let our American friends answer this question:
Why Iraq? What is the reason?
Is Bin Laden an Iraqi? No he is not.
Were those who attacked New York Iraqis? No, they were not.
were those who attacked the Pentagon Iraqis? No, they were not.
Were there WMDs in Iraq? No, there were not.
Even if iraq did have WMDs - Pakistan and India have nuclear bombs, and so do China, Russia, Britain, France and America.
Should all these countries be destroyed?
Fine, let's destroy all the countries that have WMDs.
Along comes a foreign power, occupies an Arab country, and hangs its president, and we all sit on the sidelines, laughing.
Why didn't they investigate the hanging of Saddam Hussein?
How can a POW be hanged - a president of an Arab country and a member of the Arab League no less!
I'm not talking about the policies of Saddam Hussein, or the disagreements we had with him.
We all had poitlical disagreements with him and we have such disagreements among ourselves here.
We share nothing, beyond this hall.
Why won't there be an investigation into the killing of Saddam Hussein?
An entire Arab leadership was executed by hanging, yet we sit on the sidelines. Why?
Any one of you might be next. Yes.
America fought alongside Saddam Hussein against Khomeini.
He was their friend. Cheney was a friend of Saddam Hussein.
Rumsfeld, the US Defense Secretary at the time Iraq was destroyed, was a close friend of Saddam Hussein.
Ultimately, they sold him out and hanged him.
You are friends of America - let's say that ''we'' are, not ''you'' - but one of these days, America may hang us.
Brother 'Amr Musa has an idea which he is enthusiastic. He mentioned it in his report.
He says that the Arabs have the right to use nuclear power for peaceful purposes, and that there should be an Arab nuclear program.
The Arabs have this right.
They even have the right to have the right to have a nuclear program for other...
But Allah prevails...
But who are those Arabs whom you say should have united nuclear program?
We are the enemies of one another, I'm sad to say.
We all hate one another, we deceive one another, we gloat at the misfortune of one another, and we conspire against one another.
Our intelligence agencies conspire against one another, instead of defending us against the enemy.
We are the enemies of one another, and an Arab's enemy is another Arab's friend.
”
”
Muammar Gaddafi
“
You can't tiptoe toward justice. You can't walk up to the door all polite and know once or twice, hoping someone's home. Justice is a door that, when closed, must be kicked in. "No state," Baldwin wrote, "has been able to foresee or prevent the day when their most ruined and abject accomplice - or most expensively dressed prostitute - will growl, 'This far and no further.'" And maybe that day is more like a series of days, the whole year of protest that erupted between now and then, a culminated mass of days and nights, bodies laying down in intersections, symphony halls, strip malls, superhighways across this country, stopping traffic and business-as-usual, declaring by their very presence: "No further," and again, "No further.
”
”
Daniel José Older
“
Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap; let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling-books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay of all sexes and tongues and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.
While ever a state of feeling such as this shall universally or even very generally prevail throughout the nation, vain will be every effort, and fruitless every attempt, to subvert our national freedom
”
”
Abraham Lincoln
“
States. It was not easy for Chinese to get into the country. In 1882 Congress had passed a law suspending the entry of Chinese laborers and “all persons of the Chinese race” except officials, teachers, students, tourists, and merchants, at the same time formally prohibiting the naturalization of Chinese. The 1882 Act was the culmination of decades of anti-Chinese propaganda and discrimination. In 1852 California Governor John Bigler described Chinese immigrants as “contract coolies, avaricious, ignorant of moral obligations, incapable of being assimilated and dangerous to the welfare of the state.” In 1854 the California Supreme Court reversed the conviction of a white man for killing a Chinese miner by invoking Section 14 of the California Criminal Act, which specified that “no Black or mulatto person, or Indian shall be allowed to give evidence in favor of, or against a white man.” In support of the decision Chief Justice Hugh Murray declared that “to let Chinese testify in a court of law would admit them to all the equal rights of citizenship. And then we might see them at the polls, in the jury box, upon the bench, and in our legislative halls.” In 1879 the California State constitution prohibited corporations and municipal works from hiring Chinese and authorized cities to remove Chinese from their boundaries.1 My father never told us how he got around the restrictions of the Exclusion Act, and we knew better than to probe because it was generally understood that the distinction between being here legally and illegally was a shadowy one.
”
”
Grace Lee Boggs (Living for Change: An Autobiography)
“
A week before the election Roosevelt had sufficiently recovered to deliver his final speech of the campaign at Carnegie Hall. In contrast to the caustic tone toward opponents that had marked his campaign, he now focused solely on the principles for which the Progressive Party stood. He believed, he told his spellbound audience, that “perhaps once in a generation” the time comes for the people to enter the battle for social justice. If the continuing problems created by the Industrial Age were not addressed, he warned, the country would eventually be “sundered by those dreadful lines of division” that set “the haves” and the “have-nots” against one another. “Win or lose I am glad beyond measure that I am one of the many who in this fight have stood ready to spend and be spent.
”
”
Doris Kearns Goodwin (Leadership: In Turbulent Times)
“
It is certain, that if Ravaillac had not assassinated Henri IV., there would have been no documents in the trial of Ravaillac deposited in the clerk's office of the Palais de Justice, no accomplices interested in causing the said documents to disappear; hence, no incendiaries obliged, for lack of better means, to burn the clerk's office in order to burn the documents, and to burn the Palais de Justice in order to burn the clerk's office; consequently, in short, no conflagration in 1618. The old Palais would be standing still, with its ancient grand hall; I should be able to say to the reader, "Go and look at it," and we should thus both escape the necessity,—I of making, and he of reading, a description of it, such as it is. Which demonstrates a new truth: that great events have incalculable results.
”
”
Victor Hugo (Complete Works of Victor Hugo)
“
Your butler informed me you were here. I thought-that is, I wondered how things were going.”
“And since my butler didn’t know,” Ian concluded with amused irritation, “you decided to call on Elizabeth and see if you could discover for yourself?”
“Something like that,” the vicar said calmly. “Elizabeth regards me as a friend, I think. And so I planned to call on her and, if you weren’t here, to put in a good word for you.”
“Only one?” Ian said mildly.
The vicar did not back down; he rarely did, particularly in matters of morality or justice. “Given your treatment of her, I was hard pressed to think of one. How did matters turn out with your grandfather?”
“Well enough,” Ina said, his mind on meeting with Elizabeth. “He’s here in London.”
“And?”
“And,” Ian said sardonically, “you may now address me as ‘my lord.’”
“I’ve come here,” Duncan persisted implacably, “to address you as ‘the bridegroom.’”
A flash of annoyance crossed Ian’s tanned features. “You never stop pressing, do you? I’ve managed my own life for thirty years, Duncan. I think I can do it now.”
Duncan had the grace to look slightly abashed. “You’re right, of course. Shall I leave?”
Ian considered the benefits of Duncan’s soothing presence and reluctantly shook his head. “No. In fact, since you’re here,” he continued as they neared the top step, “you may as well be the one to announce us to the butler. I can’t get past him.”
Duncan lifted the knocker while bestowing a mocking glance on Ian. “You can’t get past the butler, and you think you’re managing very well without me?”
Declining to rise to that bait, Ian remained silent. The door opened a moment later, and the butler looked politely from Duncan, who began to give his name, to Ian. To Duncan’s startled disbelief, the door came crashing forward in his face. An instant before it banged into its frame Ian twisted, slamming his shoulder into it and sending the butler flying backward into the hall and ricocheting off the wall. In a low, savage voice he said, “Tell your mistress I’m here, or I’ll find her myself and tell her.”
With a glance of furious outrage the older man considered Ian’s superior size and powerful frame, then turned and started reluctantly for a room ahead and to the left, where muted voices could be heard.
Duncan eyed Ian with one gray eyebrow lifted and said sardonically, “Very clever of you to ingratiate yourself so well with Elizabeth’s servants.”
The group in the drawing room reacted with diverse emotions to Bentner’s announcement that “Thornton is here and forced his way into the house.” The dowager duchess looked fascinated, Julius looked both relived and dismayed, Alexandra looked wary, and Elizabeth, who was still preoccupied with her uncle’s unstated purpose for his visit, looked nonplussed. Only Lucinda showed no expression at all, but she laid her needlework aside and lifted her face attentively toward the doorway.
”
”
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))
“
For the next two years, Gary assisted unions in getting some justice for the worker from the business owner. Gary would also help educate voters, who didn’t have too much in the way of an education, to vote how Gary, and the other community organizers, wanted. They told those voters that the Republicans and conservatives wanted to enslave them, that they, the Republicans, were against the working man and woman, and the Republicans only cared about rich, white, old men, who were making millions of dollars off of the poor peoples’ backs. Gary helped hold protests all over the state for these poorer people, with other communist and socialist organizers. Any time a politician had to hold a town hall meeting, or a city council meeting, when the subject was jobs and housing, they were there. Gary knew this was all smoke and mirrors, because nothing would ever actually change, it was all to keep the supposedly downtrodden on the same side as Gary and the others.
”
”
Cliff Ball (The Usurper: A suspense political thriller)
“
Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution never to violate in the least particular the laws of the country, and never to tolerate their violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and the Laws let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honour; let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own and his children's liberty. Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap. Let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges. Let it be written in primers, spelling-books, and in almanacs. Let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation. When
”
”
Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln: Speeches and Writings: 1832-1858 Volume 1 (Illustrated))
“
Remember that you are the champions of our justice, the champions of our holy Russia, of her principles, her family, everything that she holds sacred! Yes, you represent Russia here at this moment, and your verdict will be heard not in this hall only but will re-echo throughout the whole of Russia, and all Russia will hear you, as her champions and her judges, and she will be encouraged or disheartened by your verdict. Do not disappoint Russia and her expectations. Our fatal troika dashes on in her headlong flight perhaps to destruction and in all Russia for long past men have stretched out imploring hands and called a halt to its furious reckless course. And if other nations stand aside from that troika that may be, not from respect, as the poet would fain believe, but simply from horror. From horror, perhaps from disgust. And well it is that they stand aside, but maybe they will cease one day to do so and will form a firm wall confronting the hurrying apparition and will check the frenzied rush of our lawlessness, for the sake of their own safety, enlightenment, and civilisation. Already we have heard voices of alarm from Europe, they already begin to sound.
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov)
“
Senator Hill has done me the honor to take me as the antitype of his political methods and political views, and has singled me out for attack in connection with the Excise Law. Senator Hill’s complaint is that I honestly enforce the law which he and Tammany put on the statute books … [His] assault upon that honest enforcement is the admission, in the first place, that it never has been honestly enforced before, and, in the next place, that he never expected it to be … It is but natural that he and Tammany should grow wild with anger at the honest enforcement of the law, for it was a law which was intended to be the most potent weapon in keeping the saloons subservient allies to Tammany Hall. With a law such as this, enforced only against the poor or the honest man and violated with impunity by every rich scoundrel and every corrupt politician, the machine did indeed seem to have its yoke on the neck of the people. But we throw off that yoke, and no special pleading of Senator Hill can avail to make us put it on … Where justice is bought, where favor is the price of money or political influence, the rich man held his own and the poor man went to the wall. Now all are treated exactly alike.107
”
”
Edmund Morris (The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt)
“
I also kept wondering, throughout that week in the summer of 2016, what if all I wanted to do was bang Nick Jonas (a question still) and maybe wrote a fifteen-hundred-word ode, talking about his chest and his ass and his dumb-sexy face and the fact I didn’t really like his music—would that have been a dis on Nick? Or what if a woman wanted to write about how she really hated Drake’s music but found him so physically hot and desirable that she was lusting for him anyway? Where would that put her? Where would that put me? Would either of these pieces raise any eyebrows? Were we then equal? No, not even close, because in our culture social-justice warriors always prefer women to be victims. The responses from Jezebel and Flavorwire and Teen Vogue all recast Ferreira as a victim, reinforcing her (supposed) violation at the hands of a male writer—the usual hall-of-mirrors loop people find themselves in when looking for something, anything, to get angry about, and one where they can occasionally, eventually, get tripped up. The reality is that men look at women, and men look at other men, and women look at men, and women especially size up other women and objectify them. Has anybody who’s ever been on a dating app recently not seen how our Darwinian impulses are gratified by a swipe or two?
”
”
Bret Easton Ellis (White)
“
For those who live in Kashmir, the expectations of justice, rarely fulfilled in the Indian subcontinent, are more than optimistic; they belong to fantasy. It makes it all the more difficult for the victims to bear their human losses. At Dalal's house, the once carefully tended plants and hedges were already running wild just a few weeks after his murder, the fish in the pond were mostly dead, and few men sat slumped on the floor in a bare hall under the Islamic calendar of mourning. His mother, persuaded by her male relatives to emerge from the dark room where she had taken to since her son's death, broke down as soon as she noticed the photos of Dalal I had been studying. The pictures showed a young man in dark glasses and trendy clothes, a happy, contented man, someone who had managed to find, amid the relentless violence of the insurgency, a new style and identity for himself, and when Dalal's mother, still crying, while her mother, Dalal's grandmother, sat beside her, quietly wiping her tears with the frayed end of her headscarf, asked what was the point of talking to the press, of speaking about her son to me- he was gone and wouldn't come back; the people who had killed him were too powerful- it was hard not to feel pierced by the truth of what she was saying, hard not to be moved by her grief, and the pain, amid the great human waste of Kashmir, of her helplessness.
”
”
Pankaj Mishra (Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet, and Beyond)
“
One of our best dates was actually a weekend when we went to the wedding of a friend from the Teams. The couple married in Wimberley, Texas, a small town maybe forty miles south of Austin and a few hours’ drive from where we lived. We were having such a pleasant day, we didn’t want it to end.
“It doesn’t have to end,” suggested Chris as we headed for the car. “The kids are at my parents’ for the weekend. Where do you want to go?”
We googled for hotels and found a place in San Antonio, a little farther south. Located around the corner from the Alamo, the hotel seemed tailor-made for Chris. There was history in every floorboard. He loved the authentic Texan and Old West touches, from the lobby to the rooms. He read every framed article on the walls and admired each artifact. We walked through halls where famous lawmen-and maybe an outlaw or two-had trod a hundred years before. In the evening, we relaxed with coffee out on the balcony of our room-something we’d never managed to do when we actually owned one. It was one of those perfect days you dream of, completely unplanned.
I have a great picture of Chris sitting out there in his cowboy boots, feet propped up, a big smile on his face. It’s still one of my favorites.
People ask about Chris’s love of the Old West. It was something he was born with, really. It had to be in his genes. He grew up watching old westerns with his family, and for a time became a bronco-bustin’ cowboy and ranch hand.
More than that, I think the clear sense of right and wrong, of frontier justice and strong values, appealed to him.
”
”
Taya Kyle (American Wife: Love, War, Faith, and Renewal)
“
For a hitter, there’s no thrill quite like a late inning, game-changing home run. Unless, that is, the shot is called back. On July 24, 1983, Kansas City superstar George Brett was riding high after hitting a two-out, two-run homer in Yankee Stadium. The future Hall of Famer’s blast changed a 4–3 ninth inning deficit into a 5–4 Royals lead. The joy soon faded, though, when New York manager Billy Martin asked home plate umpire Tim McClelland to inspect Brett’s bat. Earlier in the season, Yankee third baseman Graig Nettles had noticed that Brett seemed to use more pine tar than the rules allowed—and Martin had saved that choice information for just such a moment as this. McClelland measured the goo on Brett’s bat, finding it exceeded the eighteen inches allowed. Brett was called out, erasing the home run and giving the Yankees a 4–3 victory. The Royals were incensed by the ruling, which was later overturned by American League president Lee McPhail, who said “games should be won and lost on the playing field—not through technicalities of the rules.” Baseball’s official acknowledgment of the “bigger picture” is reminiscent of Jesus’ approach to God’s laws. Arguing with hypocritical Pharisees, Jesus once said, “You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former” (Matthew 23:23). Our concern for the letter of the law should be balanced by an equal concern for the spirit of the law. If you’re inclined to spiritual pickiness, don’t forget the “more important matters.
”
”
Paul Kent (Playing with Purpose: Baseball Devotions: 180 Spiritual Truths Drawn from the Great Game of Baseball)
“
These communities, by their representatives in old Independence Hall, said to the whole world of men: ``We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'' This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures.
Yes, gentlemen, to all His creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows. They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their children and their children's children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages. Wise statesmen as they were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants, and so they established these great self-evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, were entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began---so that truth, and justice, and mercy, and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the temple of liberty was being built.
”
”
Abraham Lincoln
“
Then something moved on the hall floor, just outside the bars. Her eyes swung there. Sunday Justice sat on his haunches staring at her dark eyes with his green ones.
Her heart raced. Locked up alone all these weeks, and now this creature could step wizardlike between the bars. Be with her. Sunday Justice broke the stare and looked down the hall, toward the inmates' talk. Kya was terrified that he would leave her and walk to them. But he looked back at her, blinked in obligatory boredom, and squeezed easily between the bars. Inside.
Kya breathed out. Whispered, "Please stay."
Taking his time, he sniffed his way around the cell, researching the damp cement walls, the exposed pipes, and the sink, all the while compelled to ignore her. A small crack in the wall was the most interesting to him. She knew because he flicked his thoughts on his tail. He ended his tour next to the small bed. Then, just like that, he jumped onto her lap and circled, his large white paws finding soft purchase on her thighs. Kya sat frozen, her arms slightly raised, so as not to interfere with his maneuvering. Finally, he settled as though he had nested here every night of his life. He looked at her. Gently she touched his head, then scratched his neck. A loud purr erupted like a current. She closed her eyes at such easy acceptance. A deep pause in a lifetime of longing.
Afraid to move, she sat stiff until her leg cramped, then shifted slightly to stretch her muscles. Sunday Justice, without opening his eyes, slid off her lap and curled up next to her side. She lay down fully clothed, and they both nestled in. She watched him sleep, then followed. Not falling toward a jolt, but a drifting, finally, into an empty calm.
Once during the night, she opened her eyes and watched him sleeping on his back, forepaws stretched one way, hind paws the other.
”
”
Delia Owens (Where the Crawdads Sing)
“
You do that a great deal, don’t you?”
He swallowed the rest of his wine. “What?”
“Close up into yourself whenever someone tries to peer into your soul. Make a joke of it.”
“If you came out here to lecture me,” he snapped, “don’t bother. Gran has perfected that talent. You can’t possibly compete.”
“I only want to understand.”
“I want to be consumed by a star, but we don’t all get what we want.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” Turning for the nearest door into the house, he started to stalk off, but she caught his arm.
“Why are you so angry at your grandmother?” Maria asked.
“I told you-she’s trying to ruin the lives of me and my siblings.”
“By requiring you to marry so you can have children? I thought all lords and ladies were expected to do that. And the five of you are certainly old enough.” Her tone turned teasing. “Some of you are beyond being old enough.”
“Watch it, minx,” he clipped out. “I’m not in the mood for having my nose tweaked tonight.”
“Because of your grandmother, you mean. It’s not just her demand that has you angry, is it? It goes back longer than that.”
Oliver glared at her. “Why do you care? Has she got you fighting her battles for her now?”
“Hardly. She just informed me that I was, and I quote, ‘exactly the sort of woman who would not meet my requirements of a wife.’”
A smile touched his lips at her accurate mimicking of Gran at her most haughty. “I told you she would think that.”
“Yes,” she said dryly. “You both excel at insulting people.”
“One of my many talents.”
“There you go again. Making a joke to avoid talking about what makes you uncomfortable.”
“And what is that?”
“What did your grandmother do, besides giving you an ultimatum about marriage, that has you at daggers drawn?”
Blast it all, would she not leave off? “How do you know she did anything? Perhaps I’m just contrary.”
“You are. But that’s not what has you so angry at her.”
“If you plan to spend the next two weeks asking ridiculous questions that have no answers, then I will pay you to return to London.”
She smiled. “No, you won’t. You need me.”
“True. But since I’m paying for the service you’re providing, I get some say in how it’s rendered. Bedeviling me with questions isn’t part of our bargain.”
“You haven’t paid me anything yet,” she said lightly, “so I should think there’s some leeway in the terms. Especially since I’ve been working hard all evening furthering your cause. I just finished telling your grandmother that I have ‘feelings’ for you, and that I know you have ‘feelings’ for me.”
“You didn’t choke on that lie?” he quipped.
“I do have feelings for you-probably not the sort she meant, though apparently she believed me. But she was suspicious. She’s more astute than you give her credit for. First she accused us of acting a farce, and then, when I denied that, she accused me of thinking to marry you so I could gain a fortune from her down the line.”
“And what did you say to that?”
“I told her she could keep her precious fortune.”
“Did you, indeed? I would have given my right arm to see that.” Maria was proving to be an endless source of amazement. No one ever stood up to Gran-except this American chit, with her naïve beliefs in justice and right and morality.
It amazed him that she’d done it, considering how he’d treated her. No one, not even his siblings, had ever defended him with so little reason. It stirred something that had long lain dead inside him.
His conscience? No, that wasn’t dead; it was nonexistent.
”
”
Sabrina Jeffries (The Truth About Lord Stoneville (Hellions of Halstead Hall, #1))
“
Lady Thornton, how very good of you to find the time to pay us a social call! Would it be too pushing of me to inquire as to your whereabouts during the last six weeks?”
At that moment Elizabeth’s only thought was that if Ian’s barrister felt this way about her, how much more hatred she would face when she confronted Ian himself. “I-I can imagine what you must be thinking,” she began in a conciliatory manner.
He interrupted sarcastically, “Oh, I don’t think you can, madam. If you could, you’d be quite horrified at this moment.”
“I can explain everything,” Elizabeth burst out.
“Really?” he drawled blightingly. “A pity you didn’t try to do that six weeks ago!”
“I’m here to do it now,” Elizabeth cried, clinging to a slender thread of control.
“Begin at your leisure,” he drawled sarcastically. “here are only three hundred people across the hall awaiting your convenience.”
Panic and frustration made Elizabeth’s voice shake and her temper explode. “Now see here, sir, I have not traveled day and night so that I can stand here while you waste time insulting me! I came here the instant I read a paper and realized my husband is in trouble. I’ve come to prove I’m alive and unharmed, and that my brother is also alive!”
Instead of looking pleased or relieved he looked more snide than before. “Do tell, madam. I am on tenterhooks to hear the whole of it.”
“Why are you doing this?” Elizabeth cried. “For the love of heaven, I’m on your side!”
“Thank God we don’t have more like you.”
Elizabeth steadfastly ignored that and launched into a swift but complete version of everything that had happened from the moment Robert came up behind her at Havenhurst. Finished, she stood up, ready to go in and tell everyone across the hall the same thing, but Delham continued to pillory her with his gaze, watching her in silence above his steepled fingertips. “Are we supposed to believe that Banbury tale?” he snapped at last. “Your brother is alive, but he isn’t here. Are we supposed to accept the word of a married woman who brazenly traveled as man and wife with another man-“
“With my brother,” Elizabeth retorted, bracing her palms on the desk, as if by sheer proximity she could make him understand.
“So you want us to believe. Why, Lady Thornton? Why this sudden interest in your husband’s well-being?”
“Delham!” the duchess barked. “Are you mad? Anyone can see she’s telling the truth-even I-and I wasn’t inclined to believe a word she said when she arrived at my house! You are tearing into her for no reason-“
Without moving his eyes from Elizabeth, Mr. Delham said shortly, “Your grace, what I’ve been doing is nothing to what the prosecution will try to do to her story. If she can’t hold up in here, she hasn’t a chance out there!”
“I don’t understand this at all!” Elizabeth cried with panic and fury. “By being here I can disprove that my husband has done away with me. And I have a letter from Mrs. Hogan describing my brother in detail and stating that we were together. She will come here herself if you need her, only she is with child and couldn’t travel as quickly as I had to do. This is a trial to prove whether or not my husband is guilty of those crimes. I know the truth, and I can prove he isn’t.”
“You’re mistaken, Lady Thornton,” Delham said in a bitter voice. “Because of its sensational nature and the wild conjecture in the press, this is no longer a quest for truth and justice in the House of Lords. This is now an amphitheater, and the prosecution is in the center of the stage, playing a starring role before an audience of thousands all over England who will read about it in the papers. They’re bent on giving a stellar performance, and they’ve been doing just that. Very well,” he said after a moment. “Let’s see how well you can deal with them.
”
”
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))
“
There was more than getting justice for a wronged woman,” Michael added. “I also met you. One of the most extraordinary experiences in my life.” Nothing had been the same for him since.
“Not much remarkable about that,” she demurred.
“You sought out Nemesis not for yourself, but for your friend. It was bloody amazing what you did during that job. When Nemesis needed your help again, you answered the call. Just tonight, you’d been afraid but willing to make the climb down the side of Covington Hall. Damned extraordinary.” Thank God he’d been too distracted by climbing to think about the fact that she’d had her arms and legs wrapped around him, her body tight against his.
A corner of her mouth turned up. “Oh, when you put it like that, maybe I am rather special.”
“Sodding right.” A silence fell. But he wasn’t willing to let it linger
”
”
Zoe Archer (Winter's Heat (Nemesis, Unlimited, #1.5))
“
It is a part of our office to stand uncloaked, masked, sword bared, upon the scaffold for a long time before the client is brought out. Some say this is to symbolize the unsleeping omnipresence of justice, but I believe the real reason is to give the crowd a focus, and the feeling that something is about to take place. A crowd is not the sum of the individuals who compose it. Rather it is a species of animal, without language or real consciousness, born when they gather, dying when they depart. Before the Hall of Justice, a ring of dimarchi surrounded the scaffold with their lances, and the pistol their officer carried could, I suppose, have killed fifty or sixty before someone could snatch it from him and knock him to the cobblestones to die. Still it is better to have a focus, and some open symbol of power.
Wolfe, Gene (1994-10-15). Shadow & Claw: The First Half of 'The Book of the New Sun' (p. 184). Tom Doherty Associates. Kindle Edition.
”
”
Gene Wolfe
“
awkward televised hug from the new president of the United States. My curtain call worked. Until it didn’t. Still speaking in his usual stream-of-consciousness and free-association cadence, the president moved his eyes again, sweeping from left to right, toward me and my protective curtain. This time, I was not so lucky. The small eyes with the white shadows stopped on me. “Jim!” Trump exclaimed. The president called me forward. “He’s more famous than me.” Awesome. My wife Patrice has known me since I was nineteen. In the endless TV coverage of what felt to me like a thousand-yard walk across the Blue Room, back at our home she was watching TV and pointing at the screen: “That’s Jim’s ‘oh shit’ face.” Yes, it was. My inner voice was screaming: “How could he think this is a good idea? Isn’t he supposed to be the master of television? This is a complete disaster. And there is no fricking way I’m going to hug him.” The FBI and its director are not on anyone’s political team. The entire nightmare of the Clinton email investigation had been about protecting the integrity and independence of the FBI and the Department of Justice, about safeguarding the reservoir of trust and credibility. That Trump would appear to publicly thank me on his second day in office was a threat to the reservoir. Near the end of my thousand-yard walk, I extended my right hand to President Trump. This was going to be a handshake, nothing more. The president gripped my hand. Then he pulled it forward and down. There it was. He was going for the hug on national TV. I tightened the right side of my body, calling on years of side planks and dumbbell rows. He was not going to get a hug without being a whole lot stronger than he looked. He wasn’t. I thwarted the hug, but I got something worse in exchange. The president leaned in and put his mouth near my right ear. “I’m really looking forward to working with you,” he said. Unfortunately, because of the vantage point of the TV cameras, what many in the world, including my children, thought they saw was a kiss. The whole world “saw” Donald Trump kiss the man who some believed got him elected. Surely this couldn’t get any worse. President Trump made a motion as if to invite me to stand with him and the vice president and Joe Clancy. Backing away, I waved it off with a smile. “I’m not worthy,” my expression tried to say. “I’m not suicidal,” my inner voice said. Defeated and depressed, I retreated back to the far side of the room. The press was excused, and the police chiefs and directors started lining up for pictures with the president. They were very quiet. I made like I was getting in the back of the line and slipped out the side door, through the Green Room, into the hall, and down the stairs. On the way, I heard someone say the score from the Packers-Falcons game. Perfect. It is possible that I was reading too much into the usual Trump theatrics, but the episode left me worried. It was no surprise that President Trump behaved in a manner that was completely different from his predecessors—I couldn’t imagine Barack Obama or George W. Bush asking someone to come onstage like a contestant on The Price Is Right. What was distressing was what Trump symbolically seemed to be asking leaders of the law enforcement and national security agencies to do—to come forward and kiss the great man’s ring. To show their deference and loyalty. It was tremendously important that these leaders not do that—or be seen to even look like they were doing that. Trump either didn’t know that or didn’t care, though I’d spend the next several weeks quite memorably, and disastrously, trying to make this point to him and his staff.
”
”
James Comey (A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership)
“
It was always with her now, that sadness, like one of those rare orchids you saw clinging to jungle branches on TV, always blooming in her at unexpected moments, and even on the move, scuffing down the hall toward Doodle's room, the thought of evading it called it into being. Sadness. The word itself didn't do the feeling justice. What she felt was a more complicated alchemy of emotion, equal parts grief and loneliness and longing, with measures of resentment and self-pity drizzled in.
”
”
Michael Knight
“
the concept reflected, unintentionally, the state of justice in this country: an ultramodern facade and entrance hall masking the dilapidation and lack of
”
”
Bernard Minier (The Circle (Commandant Martin Servaz, #2))
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Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap—let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges;—let it be written in Primmers, spelling books, and in Almanacs—let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars. The danger to America came from within America—from “wild and furious passions” that might overwhelm the Union and its constitutional order. “At what point shall we expect the approach of danger?” Lincoln asked. “Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!…I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us….If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
”
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Jon Meacham (And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle)
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THE EMPEROR — Charles Lee Jackson, II, central figure of The Emperorverse, smart, swift, capable of amazing feats, all but indestructible, well dressed, and able to charm beautiful women with a single smile, who not only leads the fight for order and justice against all odds but collects the records of his cases and those of his partners to dramatize them for
”
”
Charles Lee Jackson II (The Emperor Decks the Halls: Free Zany Superhero Adventure)
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How's work?" I asked.
Mind-numbing. Isort crap, Xerox crap, research crap. Now and then I file crap at the courthouse. Those jaunts through the halls of justice really get the old adrenaline pumping.
”
”
Kathy Reichs (Spider Bones (Temperance Brennan, #13))
“
Vanishing Freedoms [Verse]
Our freedoms are vanishing gone like the wind. The scales are tipped against fairness lost my friend. They strip your rights they don't ask they just take. We're left here reeling feeling betrayed ain't no mistake
[Verse 2]
They got the power they got the gold. Locked us in this system tight grip hold. Scream for justice they turn a deaf ear. In this land I'm drowning in fear can't you hear?
[Chorus]
Once they strip your rights away no lookin' back. You will pay hell tryin' to get 'em back. Chains of oppression wrap round us so tight. Fight for our freedom we gotta rise and fight
[Bridge]
Grassroots growing voices loud and strong. Can't stay silent while they do us wrong. Torn and tattered but we stand tall. This country ain't free if freedom's gone at all
[Verse 3]
Faceless men trading power in the halls. We the people rise truth through the walls. No more silence we break the night. Stolen liberty now we're raging for light
[Chorus]
Once they strip your rights away no lookin' back. You will pay hell tryin' to get 'em back. Chains of oppression wrap round us so tight. Fight for our freedom we gotta rise and fight
”
”
James Hilton-Cowboy
“
The Sunborn Champion landed on the bloodied battlefield, wings curved above his head in a great arch like the carved ceiling in the grand hall of home. When he lifted his face, it was cold as gold beneath the mountain.
“Hi, loser,” said Mr. Schafer.
The Sunborn Champion was focused on Captain Arch. “Try to hit him again,” he suggested. “Give me a reason to kill you.”
“Don’t kill him,” commanded Mr. Schafer. “He’s only committed petty crimes. I have a list back in the Westering fortress. He and most of his men need to be fined, but it’s the men of Deepfort who forced prisoners into indentured servitude—”
“Elliot, I am going to kill you,” said the Sunborn Champion.
He wheeled on Mr. Schafer, all wings and bared sword and fury like the sun. Mr. Schafer rolled his eyes.
“That’s not fair. I haven’t committed any crimes. Not since the treason. I’m glad you’re here to see justice done, as I outlined in my letter to Commander Woodsinger—”
“I did notice you’d suddenly regained your ability to write letters!” snapped the Sunborn Champion.
”
”
Sarah Rees Brennan (Tears Waiting to Be Diamonds (In Other Lands, #1.5))
“
They wouldn’t give us a patent, they put obstacles in the way of our funding effort, then they needed a half a million dollars so that they would let us use the technology we had invented, developed and funded. What did the government do except put roadblocks in the way of saving Janine’s life? A reckless driver is responsible for the deaths he causes, what about the government?
”
”
D.K. Halling (Pendulum of Justice)
“
Though justice be the solid foundation on which a society may be built, it is the transcendent virtue of mercy that lifts that society above the base stones of its foundation and makes it something great.
”
”
Rayne Hall (Fiends: Ten Tales of Demons: Dark Fantasy Stories)
“
Every day. Every single day. We turn on the news, check our phones, or start our computers, and we see the horrific headlines. Tragically, they’ve become commonplace now. We expect them. Terrorists burn entire villages to the ground, with the children’s wailing heard miles away. Christian men are forced to kneel above explosives that are detonated by jihadists. Crucifixions. Beheadings. Christians are buried alive. Missionaries’ sons and daughters are slaughtered. Women are sold into sex slavery—the younger the girl, the higher the price. Radical Islamic terrorists even distribute pamphlets explaining how Islamic law does not forbid the rape of young girls. It breaks our hearts. It makes our stomachs churn. We crave justice. But the slaughter of Christians and other religious minorities and desecration of these religions’ heritages aren’t restricted to villages in the middle of nowhere. Nor has radical Islam stopped at cities in Iraq and Syria. The entire world is at war with radical Islam, whether President Barack Obama and progressives in the ivory towers of academia and the powerful halls of our federal government are willing to admit it or not. One thing is certain: radical Islam is at war with us.
”
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Jay Sekulow (Unholy Alliance: The Agenda Iran, Russia, and Jihadists Share for Conquering the World)
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The six Nicholas Bacon Scholars came next. Marlowe sat at the adjacent table with the remaining scholars, including his Parker lot. The Pensioners, all rich lads, filled out the tables in the rest of the hall. Unlike the Scholars, they paid their own commons and other expenses. Their interest in the academic life was generally marginal; their lot in life was to drink, play tennis and accumulate just enough education to return to their country seats as Justices of the Peace. Rounding out the student mix were the Sizars, poor lads who were clever enough to attend university but not meritorious enough to receive scholarships. They had to wait on their fellow students for their tuition, bed and board.
”
”
Glenn Cooper (The Devil Will Come)
“
April 3 MORNING “They took Jesus, and led Him away.” — John 19:16 HE had been all night in agony, He had spent the early morning at the hall of Caiaphas, He had been hurried from Caiaphas to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, and from Herod back again to Pilate; He had, therefore, but little strength left, and yet neither refreshment nor rest were permitted Him. They were eager for His blood, and therefore led Him out to die, loaded with the cross. O dolorous procession! Well may Salem’s daughters weep. My soul, do thou weep also. What learn we here as we see our blessed Lord led forth? Do we not perceive that truth which was set forth in shadow by the scapegoat? Did not the high-priest bring the scapegoat, and put both his hands upon its head, confessing the sins of the people, that thus those sins might be laid upon the goat, and cease from the people? Then the goat was led away by a fit man into the wilderness, and it carried away the sins of the people, so that if they were sought for they could not be found. Now we see Jesus brought before the priests and rulers, who pronounce Him guilty; God Himself imputes our sins to Him, “the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all;” “He was made sin for us;” and, as the substitute for our guilt, bearing our sin upon His shoulders, represented by the cross; we see the great Scapegoat led away by the appointed officers of justice. Beloved, can you feel assured that He carried your sin? As you look at the cross upon His shoulders, does it represent your sin? There is one way by which you can tell whether He carried your sin or not. Have you laid your hand upon His head, confessed your sin, and trusted in Him? Then your sin lies not on you; it has all been transferred by blessed imputation to Christ, and He bears it on His shoulder as a load heavier than the cross. Let not the picture vanish till you have rejoiced in your own deliverance, and adored the loving Redeemer upon whom your iniquities were laid.
”
”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Morning and Evening—Classic KJV Edition: A Devotional Classic for Daily Encouragement)
“
How dare you?' Bayar began, but his voice had lost some of its force. 'How dare you come into this sacred hall, flinging accusations?'
'I have not yet made any accusations,' Willo said. 'Perhaps it is your own guilt clamoring in your ears.
”
”
Cinda Williams Chima (The Crimson Crown (Seven Realms, #4))
“
This is all very personal for me, but it's also collective, and the two are not disconnected. I have never believed that you only advocate for the things that you stand for and embody. I've always believed that our liberation, my liberation, is tied up with yours. To make a country that works for me, there's gotta be a country that works for you.
”
”
Pramila Jayapal
“
With every flaw and imperfection, there is a man who embraces my darkness, fosters it as his own, and craves the madness of my twisted mind as chaotically as I do his. A man who walks the same line of depravity as me, flirting with the edge of corruption, our moral compass adjusting toward the justice we see fit.
”
”
Jescie Hall (Green Light)
“
You're a funny girl, Josie. Always wanting justice. Forgiveness is better, ma chére.
”
”
Martha Hall Kelly (The Golden Doves)
“
witnessed the boy who’d been stripped of a life of happiness that could’ve been his, get revenge on the evil that stole his innocence. I gritted my teeth alongside him as he carved layers of flesh from Bishop Caldwell’s arms and thighs, noting the disturbing sound of the strips of skin slapping and sticking against the cool concrete as they fell. Saint passed out on top of the table as the spurts of warm blood splattered across our faces like a badge of revengeful honor. The thrill of knowing no child would be violated so violently filled my heart as I watched Aero cut it off, the screams of torture echoing throughout my body before being muffled out by his own shriveled, bloodied dick. It was cruel. Most would consider it downright evil. But all I saw was the divine, heavenly justice of a man who deserved far worse than any pain we could inflict on this earth. I stood behind Aero, gripping his bloodied hand in mine as one life vanished and a new life was reborn.
”
”
Jescie Hall (That Sik Luv)
“
It is the duty of the living to maintain justice for the dead, no matter how they chose to live their life.
”
”
Jescie Hall (Green Light)
“
Brent knew that the federal “justice” system had been built on the concept that “you cannot fight city hall”. It had been structured to deprive all defendants of a fair trial by putting most of the power in the hands of the prosecutors, and tying judges’ hands with mandatory minimum sentences.
”
”
Kenneth Eade (Bad Company)