Court Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

... the American people seemed to have no clearer idea than they. Indeed, the American people had no idea at all; they were wandering in a wilderness much more sandy than the Hebrews had ever trodden about Sinai; they had neither serpents nor golden calves to worship. They had lost the sense of worship; for the idea that they worshipped money seemed a delusion. Worship of money was an old-world trait; a healthy appetite akin to worship of the Gods, or to worship of power in any concrete shape; but the American wasted money more recklessly than any one ever did before; he spent more to less purpose than any extravagant court aristocracy; he had no sense of relative values, and knew not what to do with his money when he got it

A Court has no right to strain the law because it causes hardship.

John Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge

Is there a Legislative power in fact, not expressly prohibited by the Constitution, which might not, according to the doctrine of the Court, be exercised as a means of carrying into effect some specified Power?

I didn't hire you to come here and lie! That's a true note. I signed it. I'll pay it.… What I employed you for was to get this business put over to the next court — not come here and lie and juggle about it!

Black Court vampires. I just shortened it some." Ebenezar tsked. "Blampires. That's the problem with you young people. Shortening all the words.

Born and bred, so to say, in Chancery, I have a strong leaning towards the rule of the Court of Chancery, of requiring full discovery.

Arthur Kekewich

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone.
But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
When he hummed in court an old love-tune

John Greenleaf Whittier

And Lincoln pointed out that this argument—which the Court applied to the territories—could also equally well be applied to the states, so that the prospect of slavery becoming national, not only through the spread into the new territories but in the spread to the states, was very great. This was Lincoln's argument.

There has been much undiscriminating eulogy of dissenting opinions…. Each dissenting opinion is a confession of failure to convince the writer's colleagues and the true test of a judge is his influence in leading, not in opposing, his court.

Robert H. Jackson

I suggest to you tonight that if George Bush had selected the [Supreme] court in '54, Clarence Thomas would have never got to law school.

When the Supreme Court says baseball isn't run like a business, everybody jumps up and down with joy. When I say the same thing, everybody throws pointy objects at me.

Half a century ago in this court I was sworn in as the Member of Parliament for George. And here I am today … I am not better than General De Wet. I am not better than President Steyn. Like them I stand firm in my principles. I can do no different. So help me God.

The figure [neo-roman writers] wish to hold out for our admiration is described again and again. He is plain and plain-hearted; he is upright and full of integrity; above all he is a man of true manliness, of dependable valour and fortitude. His virtues are repeatedly contrasted with the vices characteristic of the obnoxious lackeys and parasites who flourish at court. The courtier, instead of being plain and plain-hearted, is lewd, dissolute and debauched; instead of being upright, he is cringing, servile and base; instead of being brave, he is fawning, abject and lacking in manliness.

Quentin Skinner

HENRY: Now it is necessary to court her, and win her, and put on this clean dressing gown, and cut my various nails, and drink something that will kill the millions of germs in my mouth, and say something flattering, and be witty and bonny, and hale and kinky, all just to ease this wrinkle in the groin. It seems a high price.

Donald Barthelme

As I have noted, I find a thoughtful, analytical criticism most helpful. I do not think any judge can address a vast array of cases and issues without testing and re-testing his or her reasoning and opinions in the crucible of debate. However, since we are quite limited in public debate about matters that may come before the court, such debate must, for the most part, occur intramurally, thus placing a premium on outside scholarship.

Clarence Thomas

One is entitled to say without qualification that the correlation between prior judicial experience and fitness for the Supreme Court is zero.

Felix Frankfurter

Telecom was the golden goose which laid the golden egg. The Supreme Court ensured that the golden goose will never lay golden egg again for a little while.

Young women need to know that abortion rights and abortion access are not presents bestowed or retracted by powerful men (or women) - Presidents, Supreme Court justices, legislators, lobbyists - but freedoms won, as freedom always is, by people struggling on their own behalf.

A year ago my approval rating was in the 30s, my nominee for the Supreme Court had just withdrawn, and my vice president had shot someone. Ah, those were the good ol' days.

Meliorn? said Clary. I've met you, haven't I? You used to go out with Isabelle Lightwood. Meliorn was almost expressionless, but Clary could have sworn he looked ever so slightly uncomfortable. Luke shook his head. Clary, Meliorn is a knight of the Seelie Court. It's very unlikely that he – He was totally dating Isabelle, Simon said, and she dumped him too. At least she said she was going to. Tough break, man.

Cassandra Clare

For men naturally despise those who court them, but respect those who do not give way to them.

The great background question about the Labour governments of the sixties is whether with a stronger leader they could have gripped the country's big problems and dealt with them. How did it happen that a cabinet of such brilliant, such clever and self-confident people achieved so little? In part, it was the effect of the whirling court politics demonstrated by 'In Place of Strife'.

The two maxims of any great man at court are always to keep his countenance and never to keep his word.

I got my apprenticeship, with the Young Concert Artists Trust, playing all these warhorses in Raymond Gubbay concerts. Some are not for me anymore, but I'd still play the Grieg at the drop of a hat; it's so fresh. I'm very careful to keep on playing a lot of mainstream repertoire. I'm not into being the court jester who just does the wacky stuff. Making the connections and taking people down new paths is what I enjoy.

Joanna MacGregor

To that high Capital, where kingly Death
Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay,
He came.

Percy Bysshe Shelley