Jurist Quotes

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Bernhard Schlink

Elizabeth Warren

Ferdinand Lassalle

Kurt Schuschnigg

John Roberts

John Selden

See how he throws his baited lines about,/And plays his men as anglers play their trout.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

The bankers might not have said it in so many words, but gradually their strategy emerged: Target families who were already in a little trouble, lend them more money, get them entangled in high fees and astronomical interest rates, and then block the doors to the bankruptcy exit if they really got in over their heads.

Elizabeth Warren

The anonymous writer, who, in 1692, published the first English essay "Of the Laws of Chance," thought it necessary to protest in his preface that the design of his book was "not to teach the art of playing at dice, but to deal with them as with other epidemic distempers, and perhaps persuade a raw squire to keep his money in his pocket."

John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune

Our government leaders... have made many mistakes in the past when they have lost sight of the sacred American values rooted in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. We are at the brink of even graver mistakes and assaults on these values.

Either the men of Galilee were men of superlative wisdom, and extensive knowledge and experience, and of deeper skill in the arts of deception than any and all others, before them or after them, or they have truly stated astonishing things which they saw and heard.

Simon Greenleaf

Seditious libel is the doctrine that flourished in England during and after the Star Chamber. It is the hallmark of closed societies throughout the world. Under it, criticism of government is viewed as defamation and punished as a crime.

The most innocent man, pressed by the awful solemnities of public accusation and trial, many be incapable of supporting his own cause. He may be utterly unfit to cross-examine the witnesses against him, to point out the contradictions or defects of their testimony. And to counteract it by properly introducing it and applying his own.

Never was there seen aught more wretched; and we might be surprised that a mathematician could reason so ill, had we not other, and far more illustrious examples, which clearly evince, that the study of the mathematics does not always render the mind more correct in relation to subjects beyond the sphere of the sciences.

So I was still guilty. And if I was not guilty because one cannot be guilty of betraying a criminal, then I was guilty of having loved a criminal.

Bernhard Schlink

The situation changed visibly when sentimental reasons and long-term political aims gave way to a stern, ruthless nationalist ideology which would brook no compromise. Hitler had categorically demanded the Anschluss in "Mein Kampf".... As early as 1923 Hitler had decide that, if necessary, the National-Socialists must take over the government in Austria by force.

Kurt Schuschnigg

If we really think about it, God exists for any single individual who puts his trust in Him, not for the whole of humanity, with its laws, its organizations, and its violence. Humanity is the demon which God does not succeed in destroying.

Salvatore Satta

Trial by jury is more than an instrument of justice and more than one wheel of the constitution: it is the lamp that shows that freedom lives.

Justice is the constant and perpetual will to render to every man his due.

Commencement speakers have a good deal in common with grandfather clocks: Standing usually some six feet tall, typically ponderous in construction, more traditional than functional, their distinction is largely their noisy communication of essentially commonplace information. - Commencement address at University of Iowa.

W. Willard Wirtz

I apprehend that you may put a leading question to an unwilling witness on the examination in chief at the discretion of the Judge; but you may always put a leading question in cross-examination, whether a witness be unwilling or not.

Edward Hall Alderson

Whoever obstructs scientific inquiry clamps down the safety valve of public opinion, and puts the State in train for an explosion.

Ferdinand Lassalle

God sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain over into this wilderness.

William Stoughton

More solid things do not show the complexion of the times so well as Ballads and Libels.

That the state is an entity and in fact the decisive entity rests upon its political character.

The Romans had been able to post their laws on boards in public places, confidant that enough literate people existed to read them; far into the Middle Ages, even kings remained illiterate.

Sabotage became more frequent. On December 18, I went on a furlough and was supposed to return on January 5. When I arrived home I got a wire to be back in Copenhagen on December 29. It came from Pancke through his deputy. I later learned the reason through the deputy. Best, Pancke, Hannekan, and Kaltenbrunner were all called to Hitler's headquarters on December 30 for lunch. I went to Berlin, reported to Mueller on December 28 and 29, and told him that because I didn't execute countersabotage orders these people were to be scolded by Hitler. Mueller said: 'Comrade Mildner, watch yourself. Himmler is angry with you.'

The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity.

Anthony Kennedy

Is it surprising that modern English land law should resemble a chaos rather than a system?

The test of the moral quality of a civilization is its treatment of the weak and powerless.

Our constitution, in short, is a judge-made constitution, and it bears on its face all the features, good and bad, of judge-made law.