Top 729 Quotes & Sayings by Famous Judges - Page 2

I am primarily a lawyer. I would rather play in the game than be the umpire.

When I was on the bench, I used to have a yellow pad, and I put on the pad at the beginning of the day, 'patience' and 'restraint.'

Society cannot exist without law. Law is the bond of society: that which makes it, that which preserves it and keeps it together. It is, in fact, the essence of civil society.

Failure will not overcome me so long as my will to succeed is stronger

God help us! it is a foolish little thing, this human life, at the best; and it is half ridiculous and half pitiful to see what importance we ascribe to it, and to its little ornaments and distinctions.

All presidents but Jefferson have argued that their first job was to keep us safe. All presidents but Jefferson were wrong. If you read the Constitution, you will see that the President's first job - as Jefferson understood well - is to keep us free.

My Catholic faith is the foundation of my worldview, and my judicial duty is governed, from beginning to end, by the law.

People must be confident that a judge's decisions are determined by the law and only the law. He must be faithful to the Constitution and statutes passed by Congress. Fidelity to the Constitution and the law has been the cornerstone of my life and the hallmark of the kind of judge I have tried to be.

Each generation must recreate liberty for its own times.

We are where our thoughts have taken us.

A sovereignty is always presumed to act upon principles of justice, and if, from mistake or oversight, it does injury to a nation or an individual, it is always supposed to be ready and willing to repair it.

I know the pundits and the news media have carried a lot of commentary about cameras in the courtroom, and there's a lot of controversy about it as a result of the Simpson case. But I have not had enough time to step back and enough time to evaluate that.

The legal right of a taxpayer to decrease the amount of what otherwise would be his taxes, or altogether avoid them, by means which the law permits, cannot be doubted.

Your legal career is but a means to an end, and... that end is building the kingdom of God.

Fill the seats of justice with good men, not so absolute in goodness as to forget what human frailty is.

If a juror feels that the statute involved in any criminal offence is unfair, or that it infringes upon the defendant's natural god-given unalienable or constitutional rights, then it is his duty to affirm that the offending statute is really no law at all and that the violation of it is no crime at all, for no one is bound to obey an unjust law.

Judging is a lonely job in which a man is, as near as may be, an island entire.

The Emancipation Proclamation is predicated upon the idea that the President may so annul the constitutions and laws of sovereign states, overthrow their domestic relations, deprive loyal men of their property, and disloyal as well, without trial or condemnation.

I have a temperament that doesn't adapt well to politics. It's because I speak my mind so much.

All revolutions are impossible until they happen. Then they become inevitable

By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion; and all sects and denominations of Christians are placed upon the same equal footing, and are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty.

The Constitution is not a panacea for every blot upon the public welfare. Nor should this Court, ordained as a judicial body, be thought of as a general haven for reform movements.

The Court's legitimacy arises from the source of its authority - which is, of course, the Constitution - and is best preserved by adhering to decision methods that neither expand nor contract but legitimize the power of judicial review.

I find it hard to believe that Senators or the American public will classify Sotomayor as unqualified, particularly given the thin credentials of many of our eighteenth and nineteenth century Supreme Court Justices.

The mind as well as the body must be not only strong but well disciplined in order to act with promptness and vigor in new and untried situations. It is hard to turn men's minds from the old and deeply worn channels in which they have long been flowing.

Trouble is, kids feel they have to shock their elders and each generation grows up into something harder to shock.

A married woman has the same right to control her own body as does an unmarried woman.

When the righteous rule, the people rejoice; when the wicked rule, the people groan.

As the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed, the Internet deserves the highest protection from government intrusion.

A true teacher does not terrorize ignorant students, because a true teacher knows that it is his job to cure ignorance.

In recent weeks, I have heard former Associated Press reporter Ron Fournier on Fox News twice asserting, quite offhandedly, that President George W. Bush 'lied us into war in Iraq.'

One man's vulgarity is another man's lyric.

As a lawyer I am before and above all things for the supremacy of law.

I wasn't hired to be a moral judge. I wasn't hired to be a preacher or an evangelist. I'm hired to apply the law.

When a diplomat says yes, he means perhaps. When he says perhaps, he means no. When he says no, he is not a diplomat. When a lady says no, she means perhaps. When she says perhaps, she means yes. But when she says yes, she is no lady.

Presumptions of guilt or innocence may sometimes be strengthened or weakened by the place of birth and kind of education and associates a man has grown up with, and good character may at times interpose, and justly save, under suspicion, one who is accused of crime on slight circumstances.

The judicial system is the most expensive machine ever invented for finding out what happened and what to do about it.

He who doesn't fear death dies only once.

I think it's a bit excessive.

Questions of such gravity go down to the very foundations of the government. If the provisions of the Constitution can be set aside by an act of Congress, where is the course of usurpation to end?

They [the blacks] had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.

I have ever had the single aim of justice in view. No judge who is influenced by any other consideration is fit for the bench. 'Do equal and exact justice,' is my motto, and I have often said to the grand jury, 'Permit no innocent man to be punished, but let no guilty man escape.

The trial lawyer does what Socrates was executed for: making the worse argument appear the stronger.

Members of society must obey the law because they personally believe that its commands are justified.

We came to recognize that our initial thinking about the keys to educational reform was wrong. The key variables weren't pedagogical. They weren't financial. They weren't curricular. They weren't research. They weren't any of the usual things we've always talked about as the engines of change. The variables were deeply emotional and cultural.

The Court has long held that the Constitution protects certain fundamental rights that are not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution's text, while at the same time emphasizing that courts must proceed with great caution in recognizing such rights.

The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public.

The tendency to whining and complaining may be taken as the surest sign symptom of little souls and inferior intellects.

There is no more reason to think that they expected the world to remain static than there is to think that any of us holds a crystal ball. The only way to create a foundational document that could stand the test of time was to build in enough flexibility that later generations would be able to adapt it to their own needs and uses.

On parent knees, a naked new-born child, Weeping thou sat'st while all around thee smiled; So live, that sinking in thy last long sleep, Calm thou mayst smile, while all around thee weep.

Law is not a trade, not briefs, not merchandise, and so the heaven of commercial competition should not vulgarize the legal profession.

Editors may think of themselves as dignified headwaiters in a well-run restaurant but more often [they] operate a snack bar . . . and expect you to be grateful that at least they got the food to the table warm.

The object of any tyrant would be to overthrow or diminish trial by jury, for it is the lamp that shows that freedom lives.

If a fool keeps his mouth shut, there will be no difference of opinion.

Water. Oil pales beside it, and the value of the land itself is measured by it.

There is something particularly appealing about teaching a subject that seems to deal with the lowest kind of relationships-accidents, ambulance chasing-because you can show students that these raise the most fundamental questions about the structure of society.

Imposition of the death penalty is arbitrary and capricious. Decision of who will live and who will die for his crime turns less on the nature of the offense and the incorrigibility of the offender and more on inappropriate and indefensible considerations: the political and personal inclinations of prosecutors; the defendant's wealth, race and intellect; the race and economic status of the victim; the quality of the defendant's counsel; and the resources allocated to defense lawyers.

The main reason we are held hostage by the most destructive technology on earth is simple: the complete lack of international resolve to ban nuclear weapons and banish them from the arsenals of the world.

In fact, it is because the nature of prayer is so personal and can have such a powerful effect on a community that the government may not use its authority to try to influence an individual's decision on whether and when to pray.

A profession that we are a nation "under God" is identical, for establishment clause purposes, to a profession that we are a nation "under Jesus," a nation "under Vishnu," a nation "under Zeus," or a nation "under no god," because none of these professions can be neutral with respect to religion.