How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

My former boss Barack Obama likes to invoke a teaching of Martin Luther King Jr.: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." It sounds nice but it's not quite true. The arc can bend toward justice, but much of the time it tacks stubbornly toward the status quo. We must be willing to do the work, reaching up with our own hands and wrenching the arc away from stasis and toward a better future. And when the arc seems to be bending away from justice, we have to dig deep, muster even greater resources, and bend it back.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend toward justice. It has to be bent, and this requires sheer force of will. It demands our sharpest focus and most concentrated effort. History does not move in a straight line; it has to be dragged, kicking and screaming, all the way down the line.

Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. 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.

Evil may so shape events that Caesar will occupy a palace and Christ a cross, but that same Christ will rise up and split history into A.D. and B.C., so that even the life of Caesar must be dated by his name. Yes, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

As humanity’s power grows, it will become increasingly important that humanity considers the interests of all sentient beings, not just those who can vote or organize on their own behalf, and that we approach complex social issues like animal farming with the perspective of effective altruism. The moral arc of the universe bends toward justice, but only if people like us take hold.

The Universe is on the side of Justice

Mercy is "Alpha," justice is "Omega."

We have had the morality of submission, and the morality of chivalry and generosity; the time is now come for the morality of justice.

Remember the words of the Bible in Amos 5:24, 'Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-falling stream'.

We understand the great arc of human history bends towards people coming together in ever greater numbers — from tribes to cities to nations — to achieve things we couldn’t on our own.

Injustice having always been predominant on earth, there are some who imagine that this existing social order will continue forever. That this order was able to last until now, has mainly been due to the conviction of people that it was of divine institution.

Sophocles taught us that the greatest of all human laws is justice… and I think that is something we have to remember.

When I am a baby, in my undeveloped moral state, I do not love justice, nor conform to it; when I am sick, and have not complete control over this republic of nerves and muscles, I fail of justice, and heed it not; when I am stung with beastly rage, blinded by passion, or over attracted from my proper sphere of affection, another man briefly possessing me, I may not love the absolute and eternal right, private capillary attraction conflicting with the universal gravitation. But in my maturity, in my cool and personal hours, when I am most myself, and the accidents of my bodily temperament and local surroundings are controlled by the substance of my manhood, then I love justice with a firm, unwavering love. That is the natural fealty of my conscience to its liege-lord. Then I love justice, not for its consequences for bodily gain, but for itself, for the moral truth and loveliness thereof. Then if justice crown me I am glad, not merely with my personal feeling, because it is I who wear the crown, but because it is the crown of justice. If justice discrown and bind me down to infamy, I still am glad with all my moral sense, and joy in the universal justice, though I suffer with the private smart. Though all that is merely selfish and personal of me revolts, still what is noblest, what I hold in common with mankind and in common with God, bids me be glad if justice is done upon me; to me or upon me, I know it is justice still, and though my private injustice be my foe, the justice of the universe is still my friend. God, acting in this universal mode of moral force, acts for me, and the prospect of future suffering has no terror.