Best Judicial Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Why shouldn't two new Justices be appointed each administration? A re-elected President would then have four opportunities to appoint. At the beginning of each administration, the two oldest Justices would automatically hand in their resignations, to take effect at the President's convenience. Thus new blood would be infused into the Court at regular intervals without rancour, and the Court would normally be renewed every 16 years ... Whenever death or retirement occurred, the President would have an extra appointment.”

Retirement Supreme Court Judicial Judges Judicial System President Of The United States Judges And Justice Federal Court 1937 Presidential Appointment

Book:Born to Rebel: The Life of Harriet Boyd Hawes

Source: Born to Rebel: The Life of Harriet Boyd Hawes

“Appeal to all scholars of stupidity in the world. Come to Italy, this country has the highest rate of morons of the universe, especially among political, bureaucratic, judicial, religious, intellectual, artistic, and mass media members, so it is the best place to develop your own field research.”

World Country Political Universe Religious Media Fields Members Highest Mass Intellectual Research Rate Stupidity Artistic Appeals Scholar Judicial Moron Mass Media Best Place

Author:William C. Brown

“I don't trust Santa Barbara as far as I can spit. I am afraid that if I went back there, it's possible that I could be run through their system, their judicial system, and wind up in some county jail where I could be killed and I'm not gonna take that chance.”

Ifs I Can Running Chance Wind Jail Santa Spit County Don't Trust Judicial Barbara Judicial System Santa Barbara

Author:Randy Quaid

“What's brilliant about the United States system of government is separation of power. Not only the executive, legislative, judicial branches, but also the independence of the military from civilians, an independent media and press, an independent central bank.”

“I would never filibuster any President’s judicial nominee, period. I might vote against them, but I will always see they came to a vote.”

Might President Periods Vote Judicial Filibuster

Author:Saxby Chambliss

“Consequences flow from a justice's interpretation in a direct and immediate way. A judicial decision respecting the incompatibility of Jim Crow with a constitutional guarantee of equality is not simply a contemplative exercise in defining the shape of a just society. It is an order”

Way Order Justice Decision Exercise Shapes Consequence Flow Direct Guarantees Interpretation Defining Crow Judicial Contemplative Jim Crow Incompatibility

Author:William J. Brennan

“Egotism erects its center in itself; love places it out of itself in the axis of the universal whole. Love aims at unity, egotism at solitude. Love is the citizen ruler of a flourishing republic, egotism is a despot in a devastated creation. Egotism sows for gratitude, love for the ungrateful. Love gives, egotism lends; and love does this before the throne of judicial truth, indifferent if for the enjoyment of the following moment, or with the view to a martyr's crown--indifferent whether the reward is in this life or in the next.”

Source: Philosophical Letters of Friedrich Schiller

“No matter how badly senators want to know things, judicial nominees are limited in what they may discuss. That limitation is real. And it comes from the very nature of what judges do.”

Knows Want May Real Matter Judging Limitation Senators Judicial

Author:Orrin Hatch

“There was an ancient Roman lawyer, of great fame in the history of Roman jurisprudence, whom they called Cui Bono, from his having first introduced into judicial proceedings the argument, "What end or object could the party have had in the act with which he is accused."”

Firsts Ends Law Party Objects Fame Argument Ancient Lawyer Accused Judicial Proceeding Jurisprudence

Author:Edmund Burke

“If [the legislature] will positively enact a thing to be done, the judges are not at liberty to reject it, for that were to set the judicial power above that of the legislature, which would be subversive of all government.”

Ifs Done Government Would Be Liberty Judging Rejection Rejects Positively Legislature Judicial Subversive Judicial Power

Author:William Blackstone

“No legislative, administrative or judicial activity in the Hong Kong SAR is allowed to contradict the Basic Law, let alone to go against the Basic Law.”

Law Activity Contradiction Judicial Hong Kong Administrative Sars

Author:Wu Bangguo

“The idea that there aren't mistakes made constantly in the judicial system is too obvious even to need to mention.”

Needs Made Ideas Mistake Obvious Judicial Judicial System

Author:James Toback

“I have many things to say. My every right, constitutional, civil, political and judicial has been tramped upon. I have not only had no jury of my peers, but I have had no jury at all.”

Has Beens Political Peers Jury Judicial

Author:Susan B. Anthony

“I intend to go right on appointing highly qualified individuals of the highest personal integrity to the bench, individuals who understand the danger of short-circuiting the electoral process and disenfranchising the people through judicial activism.”

People Individual Process Danger Integrity Highest Activism Qualified Benches Judicial Personal Integrity Electoral Process Judicial Activism

Book:Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1985

Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1985

“To be effective, judicial administration must not be leaden-footed.”

Administration Judicial

Author:Felix Frankfurter

“The indispensible judicial requisite is intellectual humility.”

Humility Intellectual Judicial Intellectual Humility

Author:Felix Frankfurter

“For the highest exercise of judicial duty is to subordinate one's personal pulls and one's private views to the law of which we are all guaradians - those impersonal convictions that made a society a civilized community, and not the victims of personal rule.”

Made Law Community Views Duty Exercise Highest Victim Conviction Civilized Judicial Subordinates

Author:Felix Frankfurter

“Anarchists generally make use if the word "State" to mean all the collection of institutions, political, legislative, judicial, military, financial, etc., by means of which management of their own affairs, the guidance of their personal conduct, and the care of ensuring their own safety are taken from the people and confided to certain individuals, and these, whether by usurpation or delegation, are invested with the right to make laws over and for all, and to constrain the public to respect them, making use of the collective force of the community to this end.”

“It is of course true that any kind of judicial legislation is objectionable on the score of the limited interests which a Court can represent, yet there are wrongs which in fact legislatures cannot be brought to take an interest in, at least not until the Courts have acted.”

Kind Facts Courses Interest Court Score Legislation Legislature Judicial

Author:Learned Hand

“Legislative enactments proceed from men carrying their views a long time back; while judicial decisions are made off hand.”

Men Long Made Hands Decision Views Long Time Judicial

Book:Treatise on Rhetoric: Literally Translated from the Greek

Source: Treatise on Rhetoric: Literally Translated from the Greek

“But it is recognized that punishment for the abuse of the liberty accorded to the press is essential to the protection of the public, and that the common law rules that subject the libeler to responsibility for the public offense, as well as for the private injury, are not abolished by the protection extended in our constitutions. The law of criminal libel rests upon that secure foundation. There is also the conceded authority of courts to punish for contempt when publications directly tend to prevent the proper discharge of judicial functions.”

“Courts are the mere instruments of the law, and can will nothing. When they are said to exercise a discretion, it is a mere legal discretion, a discretion to be exercised in discerning the course prescribed by law; and, when that is discerned, it is the duty of the Court to follow it. Judicial power is never exericised for the purpose of giving effect to the will of the Judge; always for the purpose of giving effect to the will of the Legislature; or, in other words, to the will of the law.”

Giving Said Law Purpose Courses Effects Judging Duty Exercise Instruments Court Mere Legislature Discretion Judicial Discerning Judicial Power

Author:John Marshall

“Not every defeat of authority is a gain for individual freedom, nor every judicial rescue of a convict a victory for liberty.”

Individual Liberty Victory Authority Gains Defeat Rescue Judicial Convicts Individual Freedom

Author:Robert H. Jackson

“Of course, such judicial misconstruction theoretically can be cured by constitutional amendment. But the period of gestation of a constitutional amendment, or of any law reform, is reckoned in decades usually; in years, at least. And, after all, as the Court itself asserted in overruling the minimum-wage cases, it may not be the Constitution that was at fault.”

Years May Law Courses Cases Periods Constitution Court Faults Decades Reform Amendments Minimum Judicial Minimum Wage Constitutional Amendments Gestation Gestation Period

Author:Robert H. Jackson

“Active liberty is particularly at risk when law restricts speech directly related to the shaping of public opinion, for example, speech that takes place in areas related to politics and policy-making by elected officials. That special risk justifies especially strong pro-speech judicial presumptions. It also justifies careful review whenever the speech in question seeks to shape public opinion, particularly if that opinion in turn will affect the political process and the kind of society in which we live.”

“To play with baubles is our ambition, not to deal with grave questions in a spirit of serious energy. But while we are playing with baubles, with our Legislative Councils, our Simultaneous Examinations, our ingenious schemes for separating the judicial from the executive functions, - while we, I say, are finessing about trifles, the waters of the great deep are being stirred and that surging chaos of the primitive man over which our civilised societies are superimposed on a thin crust of convention, is being strangely and ominously agitated.”

“We will submit legislation to the United States Senate which will...authorize the Congress to undertake judicial review of those signing statements with the view to having the president's acts declared unconstitutional.”

States President United Views United States Congress Statements Reviews Senate Submit Legislation Judicial Signing Unconstitutional Judicial Review

Author:Arlen Specter

“Imagine a judicial nominee said 'my experience as a white man makes me better than a Latina woman.' Wouldn't they have to withdraw? New racism is no better than old racism.”

Men Said White Imagine Racism Racist White Man Judicial Latina Latina Women

Author:Newt Gingrich

“There is a difference between constitutional government and judicial dictatorship, and I think it's time we remembered that our Constitution was not put together in order to establish the sovereignty of the judges, it was framed in order to guarantee the sovereignty of the people.”

People Thinking Government Together Order Differences Judging Constitution Remembered Guarantees Dictatorship Sovereignty Judicial Framed Constitutional Government

Author:Alan Keyes

“As an exercise of raw judicial power, the Court perhaps has authority to do what it does today; but, in my view, its judgment is an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review that the Constitution extends to this Court.”

Doe Today Views Exercise Authority Judgment Constitution Court Reviews Judicial Extravagant Judicial Power Judicial Review

Author:Byron White

“The rule of God is not tyranny, for it does not partake of a political or governmental character -- it is not a rule of authority. God is not a governor of the universe, for a governor rules over those of a like nature with himself, and exercises a political and judicial power, while God exercises a creative, a preserving, and a determinative power of an altogether different kind. If I am a servant of God, I am under no tyranny; for God does not govern, but supports, sustains, and directs me.”

Source: Remarks on the science of history: followed by An a priori autobiography

“Exceptions to the traditions of dumpy dignity and fake learnedness in law review writing are as rare as they are beautiful. Once in a while a Thomas Reed Powell gets away with an imaginary judicial opinion that gives a real twist to the lion's tail. Once in a while a Thurman Arnold forgets his footnotes as though to say that if people do not believe or understand him that is their worry and not his. But even such mild breaches of etiquette as these are tolerated gingerly and seldom, and are likely to be looked at a little askance by the writers' more pious brethren.”

“Appellate review is not a magic wand and we undermine public confidence in the judicial process when we make it look like it is.”

Looks Process Magic Reviews Judicial Wands Magic Wands

Author:Alex Kozinski

“Men must always have distinguished (e.g. in judicial matters) between hearsay and seeing with one's own eyes and have preferred what one has seen to what he has merely heard from others. But the use of this distinction was originally limited to particular or subordinate matters. As regards the most weighty matters the first things and the right way the only source of knowledge was hearsay.”

Men Way Firsts Matter Use Eye Seeing Heard Particular Source Regard Distinction Right Way Distinguished Judicial Subordinates Hearsay

Book:Natural Right and History

Source: Natural Right and History

“We are deeply concerned about the situation in Russia with regards to human rights. There are several examples of this situation, such as the new law requiring NGOs to register as "foreign agents", the law banning homosexual "propaganda", problems with the rule of law and arbitrary judicial processes, and court rulings against the opposition.”

Humans Problem Law Process Situation Rights Example Concerned Regard Court Human Rights Russia Agents Propaganda Opposition Homosexual Ruling Arbitrary Rule Of Law Register Judicial

Author:Cecilia Malmstrom

“In the rare event that the Supreme Court refuses to play along [...] there is always a perfectly legal, extra-constitutional, quasi-legislative, quasi-executive, quasi-judicial, "independent" regulatory commission or executive agency to kill off or override constitutional protections.”

Play Events Independent Court Refuse Protection Supreme Agency Extras Executives Supreme Court Judicial Rare Events

Author:Ilana Mercer

“I know of no case in which you are to have a judicial proceeding, by which a man is to be deprived of any part of his property, without his having an opportunity of being heard.”

Knows Men Opportunity Cases Heard Property Deprived Judicial Proceeding

Author:Bayley

“I don't believe we need a good conservative judge, and I don't believe we need a good liberal judge. I subscribe to the Justice Potter Stewart standard. He was a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. And he said the mark of a good judge, good justice, is that when you're reading their decision, their opinion, you can't tell if it's written by a man or woman, a liberal or a conservative, a Muslim, a Jew or a Christian. You just know you're reading a good judicial decision.”

“It is important that Miers not be confirmed unless, in her 61st year, she suddenly and unexpectedly is found to have hitherto undisclosed interests and talents pertinent to the court's role. Otherwise the sound principle of substantial deference to a president's choice of judicial nominees will dissolve into a rationalization for senatorial abdication of the duty to hold presidents to some standards of seriousness that will prevent them from reducing the Supreme Court to a private plaything useful for fulfilling whims on behalf of friends.”

“It's not just that Miers has zero judicial experience. It's that she's so transparently a crony/"diversity" pick while so many other vastly more qualified and impressive candidates went to waste. If this is President Bush's bright idea to buck up his sagging popularity--among conservatives as well as the nation at large--one wonders whom he would have picked in rosier times. Shudder.”

Ifs Wells Ideas Nations President Wonder Waste Diversity Picks Candidates Zero Popularity Impressive Qualified President Bush Bucks Judicial Cronies Sagging Bright Ideas

Author:Michelle Malkin

“Wise men wrote the Constitution, but clever judges have been destroying it, bit by bit, turning it into an instrument of arbitrary judicial power, instead of a limitation on all government power.”

Men Has Beens Government Bits Wise Judging Constitution Instruments Clever Limitation Destroying Arbitrary Judicial Judicial Power

Author:Thomas Sowell

“The purity of the critical ermine, like that of the judicial, is often soiled by contact with politics.”

Criticism Critical Contact Purity Judicial

Book:Essays and Reviews

Source: Essays and Reviews

“It is profoundly troubling when you have Supreme Court justices not following their judicial oath. And taking the role of policy makers and legislators, rather than being judges.”

Justice Roles Policy Judging Court Following Supreme Makers Supreme Court Oath Judicial Legislators Supreme Court Justice Policy Makers Court Justice

Author:Ted Cruz

“The Lord Chief Justice of England recently said that the greater part of his judicial time was spent investigating collisions between propelled vehicles, each on its own side of the road, each sounding its horn and each stationary.”

Said Sides Justice Lord Greater Crime England Punishment Chiefs Vehicle Horns Judicial Collision Investigating Stationary Chief Justice

Author:Philip Guedalla

“But then a daring evasion by a leading conveyancer, known as the Lease and Release, received judicial sanction; and commenced a successful career of more than 200 years. The Lease and Release, attributed to Serjeant Moore, was based on the fact that the Statute of Inrolments did not apply to terms of years.”

Years Facts Term Known Careers Successful Release Daring Sanctions Judicial Statutes Evasion Lease Successful Career

Book:A Short History of English Law: From the Earliest Times to the End of the Year 1919

Source: A Short History of English Law: From the Earliest Times to the End of the Year 1919

“Either Christ is a liar or war is never necessary, and very properly assuming that Christ told the truth, it follows that the State is without [in the words of Father Macksey] 'judicial authority to determine when war is necessary,' because it is never necessary.”

War States Father Christ Authority Assuming Determine Liars Judicial

Author:Ben Salmon

“When a court goes too far, it actually weakens our respect for judicial institutions.”

Institutions Court Judicial

Author:Newt Gingrich

“In war, force is used by the belligerents themselves, no effort being made to bring evildoers before a judicial body, each army acting as judge, jury and executioner.”

Made War Body Used Force Effort Acting Judging Army Jury Judicial Executioners

Book:Kirby Page and the social gospel: an anthology

Source: Kirby Page and the social gospel: an anthology

“If you are not proud of your cellar, there is no thrill of satisfaction in seeing your guest hold up his wineglass to the light and look judicial.”

Ifs Looks Light Seeing Proud Satisfaction Guests Thrill Judicial Cellars Proud Of You

Book:Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

Source: Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

“The constitution is either a superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it. It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. This is the very essence of judicial duty.”

Mean Law Levels Duty Please Ordinary Essence Constitution Superiors Department Legislature Provinces Judicial Paramount Unchangeable

Author:John Marshall

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