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Felix Frankfurter
67 quotes
“It is true of opinions as of other compositions that those who are seeped in them, whose ears are sensitive to literary nuances, whose antennae record subtle silences, can gather from their contents meaning beyond the words. All this presupposes, of course, a grasp of the nature of the Supreme Court's functions — the scope and limits of its constitutional authority — and often, as well, familiarity with the record and briefs of a particular case whose opinion record and briefs of a particular case whose opinion is under scrutiny.”
Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'The Administrative Side' of Chief Justice Hughes", 63 Harvard Law Review 1, 2 (1949).
“The words of the Constitution … are so unrestricted by their intrinsic meaning or by their history or by tradition or by prior decisions that they leave the individual Justice free, if indeed they do not compel him, to gather meaning not from reading the Constitution but from reading life.”
Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Supreme Court, vol. 3, no. 1, Parliamentary Affairs (London, Winter 1949).
“What becomes decisive to a Justice's functioning on the Court in the large area within which his individuality moves is his general attitude toward law, the habits of the mind that he has formed or is capable of unforming, his capacity for detachment, his temperament or training for putting his passion behind his judgment instead of in front of it. The attitudes and qualities which I am groping to characterize are ingredients of what compendiously might be called dominating humility.”
Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) first seen 1955 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Foreward, to "Memorial issue for Robert H. Jackson", 55 Columbia Law Review (April, 1955) p. 436; quoted by United States Senator Howell Heflin during the confirmation debate for Justice David Souter, on September 24, 1…
“One is entitled to say without qualification that the correlation between prior judicial experience and fitness for the Supreme Court is zero.”
Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) first seen 1957 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Supreme Court in the Mirror of Justice," University of Pennsylvania Law Review (April, 1957), p. 786.
“The mode by which the inevitable is reached is effort.”
Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted by Garson Kanin in Atlantic (March 1964).
“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 (1882–1965) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted by Garson Kanin in Atlantic (March 1964).
“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 (1882–1965) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reply to counsel who said a challenge from the bench was “just a matter of semantics,” Reader’s Digest (June 1964).
“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.”
Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: News summaries (August 9, 1964).
“For the highest exercise of judicial duty is to subordinate one's personal pulls and one's private views to the law of which we are all guaradians - those impersonal convictions that made a society a civilized community, and not the victims of personal rule.”
Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Heritage For All Who Love The Law 51 ABAJ 330 (1965); quoted by United States Senator Howell Heflin during the confirmation debate for Justice David Souter, on September 24, 1990, S13540.
“Judicial judgment must take deep account...of the day before yesterday in order that yesterday may not paralyze today.”
Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in National Observer (Silver Spring, Maryland, March 1, 1965).
“I know of no title that I deem more honorable than that of Professor of the Harvard Law School.”
Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Of Law and Life and Other Things: Papers and Address of Felix Frankfurter (1965).
“Morals are three-quarters manners.”
Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Holmes said Emerson had a beautiful voice, and, of course, Holmes had one of the most beautiful voices the Lord ever put into a throat.”
Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I do take law very seriously, deeply seriously, because 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.”
Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A free press is vital to a democratic society because its freedom gives it power. Power in a democracy implies responsibility in its exercise. No institution in a democracy, either governmental or private, can have absolute power. Nor can the limits of power which enforce responsibility be finally determined by the limited power itself. See Carl L. Becker, Freedom and Responsibility in the American Way of Life (1945). In plain English, freedom carries with it responsibility even for the press; freedom of the press is not a freedom from responsibility for its exercise. Most State constitutions expressly provide for liability for abuse of the press' freedom. That there was such legal liability was so taken for granted by the framers of the First Amendment that it was not spelled out. Responsibility for its abuse was imbedded in the law. The First Amendment safeguarded the right. [...] The press does have the right, which is its professional function, to criticize and to advocate. The whole gamut of public affairs is the domain for fearless and critical comment, and not least the administration of justice. But the public function which belongs to the press makes it an obligation of honor to exercise this function only with the fullest sense of responsibility. Without such a lively sense of responsibility, a free press may readily become a powerful instrument of injustice.”
Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U.S. 331 (1946), at 355-356 and 365.
“The process of education has naturally enough been the basis of hope for the perdurance of our democracy on the part of all our great leaders, from Thomas Jefferson onwards. To regard teachers—in our entire educational system, from the primary grades to the university—as the priests of our democracy is therefore not to indulge in hyperbole. It is the special task of teachers to foster those habits of open-mindedness and critical inquiry which alone make for responsible citizens, who, in turn, make possible an enlightened and effective public opinion. Teachers must fulfill their function by precept and practice, by the very atmosphere which they generate; they must be exemplars of open-mindedness and free inquiry. They cannot carry out their noble task if the conditions for the practice of a responsible and critical mind are denied to them.”
Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Concurring, Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U.S. 183 (1952) at 196.
“Emerson said to him, "Young man, have you read Plato?" Holmes said he hadn't. "You must. You must read Plato. But you must hold him at arm's length and say, 'Plato, you have delighted and edified mankind for two thousand years. What have you to say to me?'" Holmes said, "That's the lesson of independence." So off he went and read Plato for a few moths or a year, and then wrote a piece doing in Mr. Plato in one of those ephemeral literary things at Harvard. He laid this, as it were, at the feet of Mr. Emerson and awaited the next morning's mail, hoping to get a warm appreciation from Emerson. And the next day and the next and the next — no sign of life. No acknowledgment from Mr. Emerson. Holmes didn't see him again for about a year. When he saw him, this, that, and the other thing was again talked about. Emerson said, "Oh, by the way, I read your piece on Plato. Holmes, when you strike at a king, you must kill him." Holmes said, "That was the second great lesson — humility.”
Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source