Quotes by Felix Frankfurter

“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...”

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

“One of the prerogatives of American citizenship is the right to criticize public men and measures, and that means not only informed and responsible criticism but the freedom to speak foolishly and ...”

“Old age and sickness bring out the essential characteristics of a man.”

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

“To some lawyers, all facts are created equal.”

“Freedom of the press is not an end in itself but a means to the end of achieving a free society.”

“The Court's authority - possessed of neither the purse nor the sword -ultimately rests on substantial public confidence in its moral sanctions.”

“Fragile as reason is and limited as law is as the institutionalized medium of reason that's all we have standing between us and the tyranny of mere will and the cruelty of unbridled undisciplined...”

“To some lawyers all facts are created equal.”

“It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in cases involving not very nice people.”

“I don't like a man to be too efficient. He's likely to be not human enough.”

“It simply is not true that war never settles anything.”

“To some lawyers all facts are created equal.”

“The Amendment nullifies sophisticated as well as simple-minded modes of discrimination.”

“In this Court dissents have gradually become majority opinions.”

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

“To be effective, judicial administration must not be leaden-footed.”

“It would be a narrow conception of jurisprudence to confine the notion of 'laws' to what is found written on the statute books, and to disregard the gloss which life has written upon it.”

“National unity is the basis of national security. To deny the legislature the right to select appropriate means for its attainment presents a totally different order of problem from that of the pro...”