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 feeling.
To some lawyers, all facts are created equal.
It simply is not true that war never settles anything.
It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have been forged in controversies involving not very nice people.
It is anomalous to hold that in order to convict a man the police cannot extract by force what is in his mind, but can extract what is in his stomach.
As a member of this court I am not justified in writing my private notions of policy into the Constitution, no matter how deeply I may cherish them or how mischievous I may deem their disregard.
The mark of a truly civilized man is confidence in the strength and security derived from the inquiring mind.
Litigation is the pursuit of practical ends, not a game of chess.
The history of liberty has largely been the history of the observance of procedural safeguards.
It must take account of what it decrees for today in order that today may not paralyze tomorrow.
Judicial judgment must take deep account of the day before yesterday in order that yesterday may not paralyze today.
The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes.
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.
We forget that the most successful statesmen have been professionals. Lincoln was a professional politician.
The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself and not what we have said about it.
