Top 729 Quotes & Sayings by Famous Judges - Page 3

If you don't run your own life, somebody else will.

If the human race wants to go to hell in a basket, technology can help it get there by jet.

Equality before the law in a true democracy is a matter of right. It cannot be a matter of charity or of favor or of grace or of discretion.

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples.

The nation relies upon public discussion as one of the indispensable means to attain correct solutions to problems of social welfare. Curtailment of free speech limits this open discussion. Our whole history teaches that adjustment of social relations through reason is possible when free speech is maintained.

If you begin to live life looking for the God that is all around you, every moment becomes a prayer.

So long as we mayhavean independent Judiciary, the great interests of the people will be safe.

Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible.

Trying to wage war on 23 million Americans who are obviously very committed to certain recreational activities is not going to be any more successful than Prohibition was.

I think then, 1st, that the only safety of the South from abolition universal is to be found in an early dissolution of the Union.

We recognize that same-sex marriage makes some people deeply uncomfortable. However, inertia and apprehension are not legitimate bases for denying same-sex couples due process and equal protection of the laws. Civil marriage is one of the cornerstones of our way of life. It allows individuals to celebrate and publicly declare their intentions to form lifelong partnerships, which provide unparalleled intimacy, companionship, emotional support and security.

Democracies die behind closed doors. . . . When government begins closing doors, it selectively controls information rightfully belonging to the people. Selective information is misinformation.

Pure water is the best gifts a man can bring. But who am I that I should have the best of anything? Let princes revel at the pump, let peers with ponds make free, ...beer is good enough for me.

Justice has often been forged from fires of indignities and prejudices suffered. Our triumphs that celebrate the freedom of choice are hallowed. We have arrived upon another moment in history when 'We the People' becomes more inclusive, and our freedom more perfect.

Looking back on my life, I wish I'd stepped forward and made a fool of myself more often when I was younger - because when you do, you find out you can do it.

The present assault upon capital is but the beginning. It will be but a stepping-stone to others, larger and more sweeping, till our political contests will become a war of the poor against the rich.

As a practising lawyer, I was mediocre, but I worked hard as a law officer of the state government and on the private side. After becoming a judge, I maintained a low profile in other activities and concentrated only on judicial work.

No power on earth has a right to take our property from us without our consent.

In all candor, the Court fails to perceive any reason for suspending the power of courts to get evidence and rule on questions of privilege in criminal matters simply because it is the president of the United States who holds the evidence.

There is a vast difference - a constitutional difference-between restrictions imposed by the state which prohibit the intellectual commingling of students, and the refusal of individuals to commingle where the state presents no such bar.

When I hear of an 'equity' in a case like this, I am reminded of a blind man in a dark room - looking for a black hat - which isn't there.

The state of law is equal for all people. It cannot depend on electoral politics.

The most drastic and usually the most effective remedy for fear is direct action.

The primary purpose of adoption is to provide a home for a child, not a child for a home.

In 1823, William Webb Ellis first picked up the ball in his arms and ran with it. And for the next 156 years forwards have been trying to work out why.

I don't know if the question is whether you believe in capital punishment anymore. I think the greater question is its effectiveness and given the choices we face in California, should we have a merit-based discussion on its effectiveness and costs?

If the Government is going to intrude upon the sacred ground of the First Amendment and tell its citizens that their exercise of protected speech could land them in jail, the law imposing such a penalty must clearly define the prohibited speech not only for the potential offender but also for the potential enforcer.

When observers look back 50 years from now, the arguments supporting Florida's ban on same-sex marriage, though just as sincerely held, will again seem an obvious pretext for discrimination.

This contract is so one-sided that I am astonished to find it written on both sides of the paper.

It's terribly wrong to stuff that sacred citadel with junk you know darn well is bad for you, I came to realize I was barreling pell-mell down the road leading to disease, disability and premature destruction of the most precious thing I could ever be given-my own life.

... three main components of leadership: mastery of the subject-matter, ability convincingly to articulate the particular course of action required and a fervent belief in its correctness.

Parents give up their rights when they drop the children off at public school.

The advertising industry is one of our most basic forms of communication and, allegedly, of information. Yet, obviously, much of this ostensible information is not purveyed to inform but to manipulate and to achieve a result - to make somebody think he needs something that very possibly he doesn't need, or to make him think one version of something is better than another version when the ground for such a belief really doesn't exist.

We really have no definition of mother in our law books. Mother was believed to have been so basic that no definition was deemed necessary.

Strength is not measured in muscle, but in will.

Because it fulfills yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection that express our common humanity, civil marriage is an esteemed institution, and the decision whether and whom to marry is among life's momentous acts of self-definition.

Do you know what the Negro is? Animal right out of the jungle. Passion. Welfare. Easy life. That's the Negro.

When you are ready to accept him for the imperfect man that he is, and find happiness in his imperfect company, you have definitely found love, and the two of you can create the perfect world for each other!

We would do well to ask ourselves the kind of fundamental questions posed by [Buruma's] erudite and thought-provoking book.

Resort to science has rendered modern war so destructive of life and property that it presents a new problem to mankind, such, that unless our civilization shall find some means of making an end to war, war will make an end to our civilization.

Cannabis never killed anybody and it's use is widespread. You can"t stop it. The law defeats itself because all the efforts to stop drugs coming in only drives up the prices and then gangsters move in to push the drugs. If they legalised there wouldn't be gangsters and huge profits...The police are gradually decriminalising the possession of cannabis because they realise there's not much point prosecuting

Criticizing others is a dangerous thing, not so much because you may make mistakes about them, but because you may be revealing the truth about yourself.

One of the best ways to learn anything is to teach yourself.

We cannot simply suspend or restrict civil liberties until the War on Terror is over, because the War on Terror is unlikely ever to be truly over.

In the right circumstances, MDMA reduces or sometimes eliminates the neurophysiological fear response to a perceived threat to one's emotional integrity... With a barrier of fear removed, a loving and forgiving awareness seemed to occur quite naturally and spontaneously.

Like mothers, taxes are often misunderstood, but seldom forgotten

Alcohol, firearms and a 4 wheel drive can go a long ways towards making a rain day into a fun rest day.

Every successful competitive practice has victims. The more successful a new method of making and distributing a product, the more victims, the deeper the victims' injury

Philosophy became a gloomy science, in the labyrinth of which people vainly tried to find the exit, called The Truth.

Although cohabitating same-sex couples are prohibited from jointly adopting children under Utah law as a result of the same-sex marriage ban, the record shows that nearly 3,000 Utah children are being raised by same-sex couples. Thus childrearing, a liberty closely related to the right to marry, is one exercised by same-sex and opposite-sex couples alike, as well as by single individuals.

We are about to make motherhood a crime. No civilized government in the history of mankind has ever done this.

The automobile is technologically more sophisticated than the bundling board, but the human motives in their uses are sometimes the same.

At the constitutional level where we work, 90 percent of any decision is emotional. The rational part of us supplies the reasons for supporting our predilections.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.

I can't think of any decision where the entire Congress immediately rushes to condemn a decision by the court. It's getting to be election time and this gives everyone in Congress a chance to prove they are patriotic.

Asking questions is an essential part of police investigation. In the ordinary sense a police officer is free to ask a person for identification without implicating the Fourth Amendment.

I know it is very hard to rise above the influences of party prejudice. Often, it almost drowns the sentiment of patriotism. Party rancor and party hatred are the last serpents which the genius of patriotism can crush.

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material but I know it when I see it.

When someone told me, 'Ang ganda mo' I answered 'Sana ikaw rin.'

Mandatory sentencing guidelines have become as complicated and detailed as the IRS code!