Felix Frankfurter Quotes

Quotes about:

• The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Freedom, Real, Exercise

  56 Copy quote

• It is a wise man who said that there is no greater inequality than the equal treatment of unequals.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Wise, Equality, Men

  Dennis v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1950)

  41 Copy quote

• We have enjoyed so much freedom for so long that we are perhaps in danger of forgetting how much blood it cost to establish the Bill of Rights.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Freedom, 4th Of July, Patriotic

  41 Copy quote

• If one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can. That means first chaos, then tyranny. Legal process is an essential part of the democratic process.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Mean, Men, Law

  "United States v. United Mine Workers, 330 U.S. 258". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. March 6, 1947.

  9 Copy quote

• The history of liberty has largely been the history of the observance of procedural safeguards.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Historical, Liberty, Observance

  "McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. March 1, 1943.

  56 Copy quote

• Freedom of speech and of the press are essential to the enlightenment of a free people and in restraining those who wield power.

  Felix Frankfurter

  People, Freedom Of Speech, Enlightenment

  25 Copy quote

• Anybody who is any good is different from anybody else.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Individuality, Different

  10 Copy quote

• No office in the land is more important than that of being a citizen.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Land, Office, Important

  24 Copy quote

• It is important not to give the appearance of a predisposed mind. And it is more important not to let the mind become predisposed.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Giving, Mind, Important

  6 Copy quote

• It is hostile to a democratic system to involve the judiciary in the politics of the people.

  Felix Frankfurter

  People, Democratic, Judiciary

  5 Copy quote

• Ultimately there can be no freedom for self unless it is vouchsafed for others; there can be no security where there is fear, and a democratic society presupposes confidence and candor in the relations of men with one another and eager collaboration for the larger ends of life instead of the pursuit of petty, selfish or vainglorious aims.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Freedom, Selfish, Men

  35 Copy quote

• It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have been forged in controversies involving not very nice people.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Nice, People, Political

  United States v. Rabinowitz (dissenting opinion) (1950)

  17 Copy quote

• Democracy is always a beckoning goal, not a safe harbor. For freedom is an unremitting endeavor, never a final achievement.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Goal, Achievement, Democracy

  9 Copy quote

• It is easy to make light of insistence on scrupulous regard for the safeguards of civil liberties when invoked on behalf of the unworthy. It is too easy. History bears testimony that by such disregard are the rights of liberty extinguished, heedlessly at first, then stealthily, and brazenly in the end.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Rights, Light, Political

  Davis v. United States, 328 U.S. 582, 597, 1946.

  31 Copy quote

• The most constructive way of resolving conflicts is to avoid them.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Way, Conflict, Constructive

  "Western Pacific Railroad Corp. v. Western Pacific Railroad Co., 345 U.S. 247". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. April 6, 1953.

  10 Copy quote

• Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Wisdom, Late, Rejects

  Dissenting, Henslee v. Union Planters National Bank & Trust Co., 335 U.S. 600, 1949.

  26 Copy quote

• All our work, our whole life is a matter of semantics, because words are the tools with which we work, the material out of which laws are made, out of which the Constitution was written. Everything depends on our understanding of them.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Law, Understanding, Tools

  "Reader's Digest" Magazine, June 1964.

  28 Copy quote

• The accretion of dangerous power does not come in a day. It does come, however slowly, from the generative force of unchecked disregard of the restrictions that fence in even the most disinterested assertion of authority.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Political, Doe, Fence

  "Patriotic Gore" by Brian Doherty, reason.com. January 18, 2006.

  12 Copy quote

• The indispensible judicial requisite is intellectual humility.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Humility, Intellectual, Intellectual Humility

  "American Federation of Labor (AFL) v. American Sash & Door Co., 335 U.S. 538". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. January 3, 1949.

  5 Copy quote

• A court which yields to the popular will thereby licenses itself to practice despotism, for there can be no assurance that it will not, on another occasion, indulge its own will.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Yield, Practice, Justice

  "American Federation of Labor (AFL) v. American Sash & Door Co., 335 U.S. 538". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. January 3, 1949.

  5 Copy quote

• It simply is not true that war never settles anything.

  Felix Frankfurter

  War, Never Settle, Settling

  9 Copy quote

• The eternal struggle in the law between constancy and change is largely a struggle between history and reason, between past reason and present needs.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Struggle, Past, Law

  "Twenty Years of Mr. Justice Holmes' Constitutional Opinions". Felix Frankfurter, "The Harvard Law Review", Volume 36, 1923.

  4 Copy quote

• Government is itself an art, one of the subtlest of the arts. It is neither business, nor technology, nor applied science. It is the art of making men live together in peace and with reasonable happiness.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Art, Technology, Men

  4 Copy quote

• The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself, and not what we have said about it.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Libertarian Party, Liberty, Constitution

  "Graves v. New York ex rel. O'Keefe, 306 U.S. 466". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. March 27, 1939.

  17 Copy quote

• I came into the world a Jew, and although I did not live my life entirely as a Jew, I think it is fitting that I should leave as a Jew. I don't want to ... turn my back on a great and noble heritage.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Thinking, Noble, Heritage

  "The Atlantic" Magazine, March 1964.

  4 Copy quote

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