Floyd Abrams Quotes

We do not sit like a kadi under a tree dispensing justice according to considerations of individual expediency

Let's create a legal system that can work.

Let's not interfere with justice... Let's let justice speak.

It is impossible to tell where the law stops and justice begins.

That's the whole point of... of prosecutorial discretion in the judicial system. It's finding a just outcome in an individual case.

Nothing is so faulty as those laws which correct faults. He who obeys them because they are just obeys a justice which is imaginary and not the essence of law; it is quite self-contained, it is law and nothing more.

Enforcing the law is not an injustice.

Reason is the life of the law; nay, the common law itself is nothing else but reason....

As I understand, the role of the federal judiciary, the role of our court system, is to provide justice.

Law in general is human reason, inasmuch as it governs all the inhabitants of the earth: the political and civil laws of each nation ought to be only the particular cases in which human reason is applied.

If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.

Swift justice demands more than just swiftness.

This is the time that I really miss being in my courtroom because I believe that that's the last place in this country where there's supposed to be fairness.

If the law doesn't apply equally to everybody, then you don't really have a system of law.

My goal for reform is not necessarily to pass laws but to make sure the laws are being followed.

The judge is not the knight-errant, roaming at will in pursuit of his own ideal of beauty or of goodness.

The acid test of any legal system is not the greatness or the grandeur of its ideal concepts, but whether, in fact, it is able to produce order and justice.

Being a justice. If you love law the way I do... you're given the job of a lifetime... you're permitted to address the most important legal questions of the country, and sometimes the world. And in doing so, you make a difference in people's lives.

Common sense often makes good law.

We must never lose sight of the fact that the law has a moral foundation, and we must never fail to ask ourselves not only what the law is, but what the law should be.

The law is cruel.

I tried to decide each case based on the law and the Constitution.

I've become very fond of the law. I've always been an advocate for justice, which occasionally the law brings to light.

Expedience, not justice, is the rule of contemporary American law.

I liked discussion and debate and thought that these skills fit well with law. I also had an interest in justice - and later learned that sometimes law and justice actually agree!