A Quote by Fulton J. Sheen

The industrial and social injustice of our era is the tragic aftermath of democracy's overemphasis on freedom as the "right to do whatever you please." No, freedom means the right to do what you ought, and ought implies law, and law implies justice, and justice implies God. So too in war, a nation that fights for freedom divorced from justice has no right to war, because it does not know why it wants to be free, or why it wants anyone else to be free.

Fulton J. Sheen

Quote Topics

Aftermath Anyone Anyone Else Because Democracy Divorced Does Else Era Fights Free Freedom Freedom Means God Implies Industrial Injustice Justice Know Law Means Nation Ought Our Please Right Social Social Injustice Too Tragic Wants War Whatever Why

Quote Author

Fulton J. Sheen
American - Priest
May 8, 1895 - December 9, 1979

Only a law-order which holds to the primacy of God's law can bring forth true freedom, freedom for justice, truth, and godly life. Freedom as an absolute is simply an assertion of man's "right" to be his own god; this means a radical denial of God's law-order. "Freedom" thus is another name for the claim by man to divinity and autonomy. It means that man becomes his own absolute.

R.J. Rushdoony

For one to be free there must be at least two. Freedom signifies a social relation, an asymmetry of social conditions: essentially it implies social difference--it presumes and implies the presence of social division. Some can be free only in so far as there is a form of dependence they can aspire to escape.

Zygmunt Bauman

It is not because we have been free, but because we have a right to be free, that we ought to demand freedom. Justice and liberty have neither birth nor race, youth nor age.

James Mackintosh

Freedom does not mean that right to do whatever we please, but rather to do as we ought. The right to do whatever we please reduces freedom to a physical power and forgets that freedom is a moral power.

Fulton J. Sheen

We will not know our own injustice if we cannot imagine justice. We will not be free if we do not imagine freedom. We cannot demand that anyone try to attain justice and freedom who has not had a chance to imagine them as attainable.

Ursula K. Le Guin

...the statement, "The purpose of the law is to cause justice to reign," is not a rigorously accurate statement. It ought to be stated that the purpose of the law is to prevent injustice from reigning. In fact, it is injustice, instead of justice, that has an existence of its own. Justice is achieved only when injustice is absent.

Frederic Bastiat

Someday, the realm of liberty and justice will encompass the planet. Freedom is not just the birthright of the few, it is the God-given right of all His children, in every country. It won't come by conquest. It will come, because freedom is right and freedom works. It will come, because cooperation and good will among free people will carry the day.

Ronald Reagan

To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues.

Thomas Hobbes

Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech; which is the right of every man as far as by it he does not hurt or control the right of another; and this is the only check it ought to suffer and the only bounds it ought to know.... Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech, a thing terrible to traitors.

Benjamin Franklin

Equality is the heart and essence of democracy, freedom, and justice, equality of opportunity in industry, in labor unions, schools and colleges, government, politics, and before the law. There must be no dual standards of justice, no dual rights, privileges, duties, or responsibilities of citizenship. No dual forms of freedom.

A. Philip Randolph

I'm still committed to the socialist idea because the socialist idea, correctly understood, includes the principles of freedom and social justice. It also includes the recognition of the value of democracy. When we speak about social justice, it means that freedom should be used not only in the interest of profit but also in the interest of the advancement of the people who create all values.

Mikhail Gorbachev

Law is justice. And it is under the law of justice - under the reign of right; under the influence of liberty, safety, stability, and responsibility - that every person will attain his real worth and the true dignity of his being. It is only under this law of justice that mankind will achieve - slowly, no doubt, but certainly - God's design for the orderly and peaceful progress of humanity.

Frederic Bastiat

We know what works: freedom works. We know what's right: freedom is right. We know how to secure a more and just and prosperous life for man on earth: through free markets, free speech, free elections and the exercise of free will unhampered by the state.

George H. W. Bush

To an American, that which deprives him of his freedom he regards as injustice, and that which allows him to enjoy that freedom he regards as justice. The concept of justice is as central to the totality of his being as freedom is, and this is not surprising, since the motivating idea behind the American Declaration of Independence was the fervent desire for justice.

Ndabaningi Sithole

The first requisite of civilization, therefore, is that of justice — that is, the assurance that a law once made will not be broken in favour of an individual. This implies nothing as to the ethical value of such a law.