Howard Zinn Quotes

The function of the law is not to provide justice or to preserve freedom. The function of the law is to keep those who hold power, in power.

Justice is the sanction used to support established injustice.

Justice in the hands of the powerful is merely a governing system like any other. Why call it justice?

Laws are like spider's webs: If some poor weak creature comes up against them, it is caught; but a big one can break through and get away.

We cannot have a just society that applies the principle of accountability to the powerless and the principle of forgiveness to the powerful. This is the America in which we currently reside.

Law in origin was merely a codification of the power of dominant groups, and did not aim at anything that to a modern man would appear to be justice

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.

Well you know, all law is about injustice.

Delay in justice is injustice.

Laws are generally found to be nets of such a texture, as the little creep through, the great break through, and the middle-sized are alone entangled in it.

I know a lot of law officers, and every single one of them faces a moment - usually after about three hours on the job - when they realise that there's no connection between law and justice. The law, as an institution, avoids justice, subverts it, just as often as it sees it done.

Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.

Justice is the means by which established injustices are sanctioned.

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 most! – and listens to their testimony.

Whate'er is best administered is best," may truly be said of a juridical system, and the due distribution of justice depends more upon the rules by which suits are to be conducted, than on the perfection of the code by which rights are defined.

Justice in this country is an insurance policy. It’s not something that we’re supposed to get sometimes.

The net of law is spread so wide, No sinner from its sweep may hide. Its meshes are so fine and strong They take in every child of wrong. O wondrous web of mystery ! Big fish alone escape from thee !

The great can protect themselves, but the poor and humble require the arm and shield of the law.

I was brought up with a very strong value that you should always protect the small and the few against those who want to misuse their muscle and weight in order to get what they weren't supposed to.

Are whisper networks good? That question itself is a little flat. Whisper networks arise in a vacuum of justice. They alleviate an untenable condition; they do not actually address it.

Justice waits upon the great, Interest holds the scale, and Riches turns the balance.

Although it may be difficult in theory to know what is just and equal, the practical difficulty of inducing those to forbear who can, if they like, encroach, is far greater, for the weaker are always asking for equality and justice, but the stronger care for none of these things.

The only real struggle in the history of the world ... is between the vested interest and social justice.

The law cannot save those who deny it but neither can the law serve any who do not use it. The history of injustice and inequality is a history of disuse of the law.