Justice & Law Quote by Sophocles

Justice is supposed to be the clean instrument: calibrated, righteous, and socially healing. Sophocles cuts that comfort down to size. "There is a time when even justice brings harm" doesn’t flatter the idea of fairness; it warns that fairness can become a weapon when it’s applied without wisdom, timing, or mercy. The line lands because it refuses the modern fantasy that "right" is automatically "good". In Sophoclean tragedy, rightness often arrives late, or arrives like a battering ram.

The subtext is political as much as moral. Athens prized law and civic order, yet Sophocles stages what happens when those values harden into obsession. Justice can be technically correct and still socially catastrophic: it can escalate feuds, provoke retaliation, or crush the very people it claims to protect. Tragedy thrives on that mismatch between principle and consequence. A verdict can be impeccable; its fallout can be ruin.

Contextually, Sophocles writes for a culture where justice isn’t abstract. It’s public, performative, entangled with honor, family duty, and the gods. Think of the world of Antigone, where competing claims of justice (state law versus sacred burial rites) don’t resolve into harmony; they grind against each other until someone breaks. The line’s intent is less to abandon justice than to demand a more adult version of it: one that recognizes human limits, collateral damage, and the dangerous thrill of punishing in the name of righteousness.