Court Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

Rest content, and give heed to one that hath sorrowed in the bright lustre of a court, and gone heavily even on the best-seeming fair ground…I know it bringeth little comfort on earth; and he is, I reckon, no wise man that looketh this way to Heaven.

Sir Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury

Not only would I never want to belong to any club that would have me for a member—if elected I would wear street shoes onto the squash court and set fire to the ballroom curtains.

A person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between. This is a sharp time, now, a precise time — we live no longer in the dusky afternoon when evil mixed itself with good and befuddled the world.

It is not surprising that in talking about uncertainty we should lean heavily on facts, just as the court of law does when interrogating witnesses. Facts form a sort of bedrock on which we can build the shifting sands of uncertainty.

The definition of marriage is so fundamental to society that it should not be decided by one court in [Massachusetts] or by one mayor in San Francisco. In [America], the people should decide. In America, the people are fair and tolerant. Let the people decide.

Several decisions of this Court make clear that freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.... That right necessarily includes the right of a woman to decide whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.

"I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that ye may be mistaken." I should like to have that written over the portals of every church, every school, and every courthouse, and, may I say, of every legislative body in the United States. I should like to have every court begin, "I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that we may be mistaken."

Poor Joshua! Victim of repeated attacks by an irresponsible, bullying, cowardly, and intemperate father, and abandoned by respondents who placed him in a dangerous predicament and who knew or learned what was going on, and yet did essentially nothing except, as the Court revealingly observes,... "dutifully recorded these incidents in files."

I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion.

So many able writers have shown that the unjust institutions which work so much misery and suffering to the masses have their root in governments, and owe their whole existence to the power derived from government. We cannot help but believe that were every law, every title deed, every court, and every police officer or soldier abolished tomorrow with one sweep, we would be better off than now.

The best of Welshmen, valiant man,
Lord of the land, of Pywer Llew's line,
A slim strong man, to him the court belongs,
That best of places, worthy to be praised.

Everyone in the band wore their influences on their sleeves and there was not a bit of the typical L. A. vibe going on where the goal is to court a record deal. There was no concern for the proper poses or goofy choruses that might spell pop-chart success; which ultimately guaranteed endless hot chicks. That type of calculated rebellion wasn't an option for us; we were too rabid a pack of musically like-minded gutter rats. We were passionate, with a common goal and a very distinct sense of integrity. That was the difference between us and them.

The Court's great power is its ability to educate, to provide moral leadership.

William O. Douglas

You can't disobey the rules every time you disapprove. However, when you're considering something that constitutes an extreme abridgement of your rights, conscience is the court of last resort.

It is hard to consider women a 'discrete and insular minority', unable to employ the 'political processes ordinarily to be relied upon' when they constitute a majority of the electorate. And the suggestion that they are incapable of exerting that political power smacks of the same paternalism that the Court so roundly condemns.

When we went to school we were told that we were governed by laws, not men. As a result of that, many people think there is no need to pay any attention to judicial candidates because judges merely apply the law by some mathematical formula and a good judge and a bad judge all apply the same kind of law. The fact is that the most important part of a judge's work is the exercise of judgment and that the law in a court is never better than the common sense judgment of the judge that is presiding.

Robert H. Jackson

In his vitriolic dissent last June from the Supreme Court's same-sex marriage decision, Justice Antonin Scalia accused the majority of having carried out a "judicial putsch." Justice Scalia should know. He and his four conservative colleagues were then in the process of executing one themselves.

Linda Greenhouse

I felt this coming. I tried unsuccessfully to assassinate Hitler in 1945. I am not concerned with jurisdiction of the court as Hess or others are. History will show the trials to be necessary.

The decision of the Supreme court has fell still born, and they find that it cannot coerce Georgia to yield to its mandate.

It is one of the unhappy incidents of the federal system that a self-righteous Supreme Court, acting on its Members' personal view of what would make a 'more perfect Union' (a criterion only slightly more restrictive than a 'more perfect world') can impose its own favored social and economic dispositions nationwide.

You ask about Queen Victoria's visit to Brussels. I saw her for an instant flashing through the Rue Royale in a carriage and six, surrounded by soldiers. She was laughing and talking very gaily. She looked a little stout, vivacious lady, very plainly dressed, not much dignity or pretension about her. The Belgians liked her very well on the whole. They said she enlivened the sombre court of King Leopold, which is usually as gloomy as a conventicle.

Charlotte Brontë

With aversion for sect superiors and their pomp,
I have no wish for monk disciples;
Not in search of lay supporters,
I court the favor of no one.

To take revenge halfheartedly is to court disaster:
Either condemn or crown your hatred.

Pierre Corneille

I do not pretend to dispense equity at large, but only by the consent of the parties, upon a rule of Court.

John Holt (Lord Chief Justice)

Do you think it not lawful for me to teach women and why do you call me to teach the court?

Anne Hutchinson