Robert H. Jackson Quotes - Page 2

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• 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

• Particularly when the war power is invoked to do things to the liberties of people, or to their property or economy that only indirectly affect conduct of the war and do not relate to the engagement of the war itself, the constitutional basis should be scrutinized with care. ... I would not be willing to hold that war powers may be indefinitely prolonged merely by keeping legally alive a state of war that had in fact ended. I cannot accept the argument that war powers last as long as the effects and consequences of war for if so they are permanent -- as permanent as the war debts.

  Robert H. Jackson

  War, Power, Long

  10 Copy quote

• We set up government by consent of the governed, and the Bill of Rights denies those in power any legal opportunity to coerce that consent. Authority here is to be controlled by public opinion, not public opinion by authority.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Opportunity, Rights, Government

  "West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette 319 U.S. 641". Judicial opinion, 1943.

  7 Copy quote

• Men are more often bribed by their loyalties and ambitions than by money.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Loyalty, Ambition, Men

  "United States v. Wunderlich, 342 U.S. 98, 103". Judicial opinion, 1951.

  21 Copy quote

• The duty to disclose knowledge of crime rests upon all citizens.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Citizens, Crime, Duty

  "Stein v. New York, 346 U.S. 156, 184". Judicial opinion, 1953.

  4 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

• We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the prices is not too great. But 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

  Attitude, Heart, Order

  "West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 641-42". 1943.

  4 Copy quote

• It is possible to hold a faith with enough confidence to believe that what should be rendered to God does not need to be decided and collected by Caesar.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Believe, Doe, Needs

  "Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306". Judicial opinion, 1952.

  4 Copy quote

• But an escape less self-depreciating was taken by Lord Westbury, who, it is said, rebuffed a barrister's reliance upon an earlier opinion of his Lordship: "I can only say that I am amazed that a man of my intelligence should have been guilty of giving such an opinion". If there are other ways of gracefully and good-naturedly surrendering former views to a better considered position, I invoke them all.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Taken, Men, Should Have

  "McGrath v. Kristensen, 340 U.S. 162, 178". Concurring opinion, 1950.

  14 Copy quote

• Your job today tells me nothing of your future--your use of your leisure today tells me just what your tomorrow will be.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Jobs, Use, Today

  5 Copy quote

• We can afford no liberties with liberty itself.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Liberty

  "United States v. Spector, 343 US 169, 180". Ddissenting opinion, 1952.

  7 Copy quote

• A person gets from a symbol the meaning he puts into it, and what is one man's comfort and inspiration is another's jest and scorn.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Inspiration, Men, Comfort

  5 Copy quote

• I do not know whether it is the view of the Court that a judge must be thick-skinned or just thick-headed, but nothing in my experience or observation confirms the idea that he is insensitive to publicity. Who does not prefer good to ill report of his work? And if fame a good public name is, as Milton said, the "last infirmity of noble mind", it is frequently the first infirmity of a mediocre one.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Views, Names, Ideas

  "Craig v. Harney, 331 U. S. 367, 396". Judicial opinion, 1947.

  7 Copy quote

• We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it. And we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war, for our position is that no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy.

  Robert H. Jackson

  War, Government, Leader

  Statement by Justice Jackson on War Trials Agreement, avalon.law.yale.edu. August 12, 1945.

  4 Copy quote

• Not every defeat of authority is a gain for individual freedom, nor every judicial rescue of a convict a victory for liberty.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Victory, Liberty, Gains

  "The Task of Maintaining Our Liberties: The Role of the Judiciary". American Bar Association Journal, Volume 39, No. 11, p. 964, www.jstor.org. November 1953.

  20 Copy quote

• Government of limited power need not be anemic government. Assurance that rights are secure tends to diminish fear and jealousy of strong government, and by making us feel safe to live under it makes for its better support.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Strong, Rights, Government

  "West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 636". Judicial opinion, 1943.

  5 Copy quote

• Of course, such judicial misconstruction theoretically can be cured by constitutional amendment. But the period of gestation of a constitutional amendment, or of any law reform, is reckoned in decades usually; in years, at least. And, after all, as the Court itself asserted in overruling the minimum-wage cases, it may not be the Constitution that was at fault.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Gestation Period, Years, Law

  "The Struggle for Judicial Supremacy: A Study in Crisis in American Power Politics". Book by Robert H. Jackson, p. 297, 1941.

  6 Copy quote

• This Court is forever adding new stories to the temples of constitutional law, and the temples have a way of collapsing when one story too many is added.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Law, Forever, Stories

  "Douglas v. Jeannette, 319 U.S. 157, 181". Judicial opinion, 1943.

  4 Copy quote

• While the Nation has forbidden monopoly by one set of laws it has been creating them by another. Patent laws, valuable as they may be in some respects, often father monopoly.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Father, Law, Creating

  6 Copy quote

• The Tax Court is independent, and its neutrality is not clouded by prosecuting duties. Its procedures assure fair hearings. Its deliberations are evidenced by careful opinions. All guides to judgment available to judges are habitually consulted and respected. It has established a tradition of freedom from bias and pressures. It deals with a subject that is highly specialized and so complex as to be the despair of judges. It is relatively better staffed for its task than is the judiciary.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Independent, Judging, Despair

  9 Copy quote

• Our people do not want barren theories from their democracy. Maury Maverick has expressed very quaintly, but clearly, what they really want when he says: 'We Americans want to talk, pray, think as we please and eat regular'.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Thinking, People, Democracy

  Speech to the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco in 1939. "America's Advocate: Robert H. Jackson" by Eugene C. Gerhart, 1958.

  8 Copy quote

• Had the jury convicted on proper instructions it would be the end of the matter. But juries are not bound by what seems inescapable logic to judges.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Judging, Would Be, Matter

  "Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 276". Judicial opinion, 1952.

  11 Copy quote

• If we can cultivate in the world the idea that aggressive war-making is the way to the prisoner's dock rather than the way to honors, we will have accomplished something toward making the peace more secure.

  Robert H. Jackson

  War, Ideas, Honor

  Opening Address to the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trials, November 10, 1945.

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Hands, Law, Being Ignored

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

  6 Copy quote

• Perhaps you have heard about the college executives who were discussing what they wanted to do after retirement age. One hoped to run a prison or school of correction so that the alumni would never come back to visit. Another chose to manage an orphan asylum so that he would not be plagued with advice from parents.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Education, Running, Retirement

  10 Copy quote

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