Derek Bok Quotes

I've always been driven by the concept of equal justice under the law, but only the rich can pay great sums of money for legal assistance and that puts them at an advantage over the poor.

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

When I was a prosecutor in Kansas City, my job was to fight for justice and safety for all citizens in my community. Equal access to justice under the law is an American value embedded in the fabric of our legal and political system - the idea that anybody, powerful or not, can have their day in court.

When I was in jail I could only think about what the average person has to go through - the person who has no power to go to the press or no money to hire a lawyer.

The law is equal before all of us; but we are not all equal before the law

Laws grind the poor and rich men rule the law.

Until economic freedom is attained for everybody, there can be no real freedom for anybody.

When I was a young fellow I was very much disturbed by there being some people with lots of money and lots of people with no money.

And Justice for Some

I Burchard, bishop of the church of Worms, on account of the strenuous lamentations of the wretched, and the frequent schemes of those many people who tear like dogs at the familia of St. Peter, imposing various laws on them and oppressing the weaker among them by their judgments; with the advice of the clergy and knights and the whole familia I have ordered that these laws be written down, so that no advocate or agent or official or any other person among them may impose on the familia anything new; rather, let it be known before everyone that there is one and the same law, common to rich and poor alike.

As long as we look to legislation to cure poverty or to abolish special privilege we are going to see poverty spread and special privilege grow.

If the upper classes, through their political representatives, pass legislation that diminishes the income of the middle class and reduces services to the poor and further enrich the affluent, this is not class warfare. But if the middle class and the poor, and their representatives, complain that this is unfair, that is class warfare. So say some of our politicians who oppose class warfare.

In the right to vote … Justice should never be too expensive. Justice should never be too slow. Justice should never depend on an army of lawyers sweeping in to help, and that is the situation we have now. We are dependent on the ability to find help whenever we can.

Inequality of income is bad for everyone, not just the poor and the middle class.

To deny political equality is to rob the ostracized of all self-respect; of credit in the market place; of recompense in the world of work; of a voice among those who make and administer the law; a choice in the jury before whom they are tried, and in the judge who decides their punishment.

The greatest issue before the people—the question of special privilege and unequal distribution of wealth.

Political power is now widely diffused; and whatever may be the evils of democracy, this good has come of it, that it has forced men to open their eyes to the misery of the masses, and to inquire more zealously as to the possibility of a better distribution of wealth.

Helping the poor doesn't mean redistributing the wealth. It means removing the breaks that give the wealthy an advantage so huge that big chunks of the nation's income are automatically removed from individual economic competition.

Only the rich can get justice, only the poor cannot escape it.

I think Republicans need to take income inequality more seriously. Not because I favor equality of outcomes. I do not. I think the Right is correct to stress merit and earned rewards, not handouts and forced equality. But I think what Republicans are blind to is that power corrupts.

We must create a kind of globalization that works for everyone... and not just for a few.

Income inequity has to be addressed.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

In a world of global dependencies with no corresponding global polity and few tools of global justice, the rich of the world are free to pursue their own interests while paying no attention to the rest.