Robert H. Jackson Quotes

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• With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Book, Men, Law

  13 Copy quote

• It is not the function of government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Fall, Errors, Government

  American Communications Ass'n v. Douds (1950)

  84 Copy quote

• The common sense of mankind demands that law shall not stop with the punishment of petty crimes by little people. It must also reach men who possess themselves of great power.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Men, Law, People

  36 Copy quote

• In our country are evangelists and zealots of many different political, economic and religious persuasions whose fanatical conviction is that all thought is divinely classified into two kinds - that which is their own and that which is false and dangerous.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Country, Religious, Government

  "American Communications Association v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382, 438". Judicial opinion, 1950.

  41 Copy quote

• The most odious of all oppressions are those which mask as justice.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Truth, Justice, Oppression

  27 Copy quote

• The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy. One's right to life, liberty and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly may not be submitted to vote; they depend on no elections.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Rights, Political, Liberty

  "West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624". Judicial opinion, 1943.

  35 Copy quote

• The privilege of opening the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave responsibility. The wrongs, which we seek to condemn and punish, have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated. That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that power has ever paid to reason.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Responsibility, Civilization, Hands

  Opening statement for the prosecution before International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, Germany, 21 Nov. 1945

  36 Copy quote

• Intellectual freedom means the right to re-examine much that has been long taken for granted. A free man must be a reasoning man, and he must dare doubt what a legislative or electoral majority may most passionately assert.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Taken, Mean, Men

  30 Copy quote

• Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Liberty, Opinion, Achieve

  West Virginia State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette (1943)

  41 Copy quote

• To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead of a compulsory routine is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Believe, Patriotic, Political

  West Virginia State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette (1943)

  50 Copy quote

• The price of freedom of religion or of speech or of the press is that we must put up with, and even pay for, a good deal of rubbish.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Inspirational, Freedom, Religion

  "United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78, 95". Judicial opinion, 1944.

  30 Copy quote

• If certain acts in violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Criminals, United States, Doe

  International Conference on Military Trials in London, 1945. Minutes of Conference Session, avalon.law.yale.edu. July 23, 1945.

  31 Copy quote

• Freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Freedom, Heart, Order

  West Virginia State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette (1943)

  37 Copy quote

• The priceless heritage of our society is the unrestricted constitutional right of each member to think as he will. Thought control is a copyright of totalitarianism, and we have no claim to it.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Thinking, Liberty, Heritage

  American Communications Ass'n v. Douds (1950)

  24 Copy quote

• Reversal by a higher court is not proof that justice is thereby better done. There is no doubt that if there were a super-Supreme Court, a substantial proportion of our reversals of state courts would also be reversed. We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Justice, Doubt, Finals

  Brown v. Allen (concurring opinion) (1953)

  32 Copy quote

• I see no reason why I should be consciously wrong today because I was unconsciously wrong yesterday.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Yesterday, Today, Reason Why

  "Massachusetts v. United States, 333 U.S. 611, 639-40". Ddissenting opinion, 1948.

  31 Copy quote

• The very purpose of a bill of rights is to withdraw certain subjects from...political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Rights, Political, Majority

  23 Copy quote

• There is danger that, if the Court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Suicide, Rights, Bills

  "Terminiello v. City of Chicago, 337 U.S. 1". Dissenting opinion, 1949.

  17 Copy quote

• I used to say that, as Solicitor General, I made three arguments of every case. First came the one that I planned-as I thought, logical, coherent, complete. Second was the one actually presented-interrupted, incoherent, disjointed, disappointing. The third was the utterly devastating argument that I thought of after going to bed that night.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Night, Law, Bed

  Lecture before State Bar of California, San Francisco, Cal., 23 Aug. 1951

  24 Copy quote

• Our forefathers found the evils of free thinking more to be endured than the evils of inquest or suppression. This is because thoughtful, bold and independent minds are essential to the wise and considered self-government.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Wise, Independent, Thoughtful

  Quoted by Z. Chafee Jr. in Atlantic Monthly, January 1955.

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• The day that this country ceases to be free for irreligion it will cease to be free for religion - except for the sect that can win political power.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Country, Winning, Political

  Zorach v. Clauson (dissenting opinion) (1952)

  85 Copy quote

• We are not final because we are infallible, but infallible only because we are final.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Law, Justice, Honor

  Brown v. Allen (concurring opinion) (1953)

  15 Copy quote

• I cannot say that our country could have no secret police without becoming totalitarian, but I can say with great conviction that it cannot become totalitarian without a centralized national police.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Country, Government, Police

  5 Copy quote

• One's right to life, liberty, and property depends on the outcome of no election.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Liberty, Outcomes, Election

  West Virginia State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette (1943)

  27 Copy quote

• Education should be a lifelong process, the formal period serving as a foundation on which life's structure may rest and rise.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Teaching, Foundation, May

  13 Copy quote

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