American Judge Quotes

Fill every beaker up, my men, pour forth the cheering wine:
There's life and strength in every drop,—thanksgiving to the vine!

Albert Gorton Greene

Rest and motion, unrelieved and unchecked, are equally destructive.

Benjamin N. Cardozo

I sometimes feel as if I am watching justice die.

A. Leon Higginbotham Jr.

A prime part of the history of our Constitution is the story of the extension of constitutional rights to people once ignored or excluded.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Future lawyers should be more aware that law is not a system of abstract logic, but the web of arrangements, rooted in history but also in hopes, for promoting to a maximum the full use of a nation's resources and talents.

Felix Frankfurter

I think it is important for judges not to have agendas or to have strong ideology or ideological views. That is baggage.

Clarence Thomas

When Shakespeare begins his exposition thus he generally at first makes people talk about the hero, but keeps the hero himself for some time out of sight, so that we await his entrance with curiosity, and sometimes with anxiety.

Andrew Coyle Bradley

Selfishness and demagoguery take advantage of liberty. The selfish hand constantly seeks to control government, and every increase of governmental power, even to meet just needs, furnishes opportunity for abuse and stimulates the effort to bend it to improper uses.

Charles Evans Hughes

The common right is nothing more or less than the protection of all, pouring its rays on each. This protection of each by all, is Fraternity.

In any civilized society the most important task is achieving a proper balance between freedom and order. In wartime, reason and history both suggest that this balance shifts in favor... of the government's ability to deal with conditions that threaten the national well-being.

William Rehnquist

It is always probable that something improbable will happen.

Logan Edwin Bleckley

For better or worse, editing is what editors are for; and editing is selection and choice of material. That editors newspaper or broadcast can and do abuse this power is beyond doubt, but that is no reason to deny the discretion Congress provided.

Warren E. Burger

The kind of corruption the media talk about, the kind the Supreme Court was concerned about, involves the putative sale of votes in exchange for campaign contributions.

James L. Buckley

Don't be shy about making a teacher of any willing party who knows what he or she is doing.

Sonia Sotomayor

I throw a kiss across the sea, I drink the winds as drinking wine, And dream they all are blown from thee, I catch the whisper'd kiss of thine.

It is absolutely true that I have served in two Democratic administrations. You can tell something from me and my political views from that.

The First Amendment expresses our Nation's fundamental commitment to religious liberty by means of two provisions–one protecting the free exercise of religion, the other barring establishment of religion. They were written by the descendants of people who had come to this land precisely so that they could practice their religion freely. Together with the other First Amendment guarantees–of free speech, a free press, and the rights to assemble and petition–the Religion Clauses were designed to safeguard the freedom of conscience and belief that those immigrants had sought. They embody an idea that was once considered radical: Free people are entitled to free and diverse thoughts, which government ought neither to constrain nor to direct

Sandra Day O'Connor

Imagine my surprise one day in February 1951 to read in the newspaper that John J. McCloy, the high commissioner to Germany, had restored all the Krupp properties that had been ordered confiscated.

William J. Wilkins (Washington state judge)

Despite sincere and altruistic motivation, the legislative and executive branches of our government have acted in a manner demonstrably at odds with our Founding Fathers' blueprint for the governance of a free people—our Constitution.

Stanley F. Birch, Jr.

The old idea of a good bargain was a transaction in which one man got the better of another. The new idea of a good contract is a transaction which is good for both parties to it.

The door of the Free Exercise Clause stands tightly closed against any government regulation of religious beliefs as such. Government may neither compel affirmation of a repugnant belief, nor penalize or discriminate against individuals or groups because they hold views abhorrent to the authorities.

William J. Brennan, Jr.

Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children's schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive.

It is now well established that the Constitution protects the right to receive information and ideas.... This right to receive information and ideas, regardless of their social worth,... is fundamental to our free society.

Thurgood Marshall

Judges must follow their oaths and do their duty, heedless of editorials, letters, telegrams, threats, petitions, panellists and talk shows.In this country, we do not administer justice by plebiscite. A judge…is a public servant who must follow his conscience, whether or not he counters the manifest wishes of those he serves; whether or not his decision seems a surrender to prevalent demands.

Hiller B. Zobel

By requiring that an execution be relatively painless, we necessarily protect the inmate from enduring any punishment that is comparable to the suffering inflicted on his victim. This trend, while appropriate and required by the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, actually undermines the very premise on which public approval of the retribution rationale is based.

John Paul Stevens