Jerome New Frank Quotes

To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.

My colleagues have learned to respect nothing but evidence, and to believe that their highest duty lies in submitting to it, however it may jar against their inclinations.

Law cannot stand apart from the social changes around it.

We … need education in the obvious – to learn to transcend our own convictions and to leave room for much that we hold dear to be done away with short of revolution by the orderly change of law.

Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also and keep pace with the times

It is not good to settle into a set of opinions. It is a mistake to put forth effort and obtain some understanding and then stop at that…. Do not rely on following the degree of understanding that you have discovered, but simply think, "This is not enough.

Facts matter, especially when they conflict with dogma and preconceived notions. Pretending otherwise has consequences.

In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

In America nothing dies easier than tradition.

Correcting it, I don't know; just shedding the light of day on it is a first major step, being one of the earliest generations not to just accept the words.

In these times, the hardest task for social or political activists is to find a way to get people to wonder again about what we all believe is true. The challenge is to sow doubt.

The modern minds in each generation are the critics who preserve us from a petrifying world, who will not leave us to walk undisturbed in the ways of our fathers.

No religious position is loyally served by refusing to consider annoying theories which may well turn out to be facts.

Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.

No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of questioning all that we believe.

Unanimity of opinion is characteristic of savages and civilization only advances as more and more people have the right to call wrong what the majority calls right..

If you want good laws, burn those you have and make new ones.

Societies either roll on blindly to disaster or they find the inner strength to stop themselves long enough to find ways for reform from within.

Principles ... become modified in practice, by facts.

Society sometimes discovers facts that society has a hard time getting used to.

Readiness to change from old law to new law enfeebles the power of the law.

Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization.

Public opinion is always in advance of the law.

Laws never would be improved, if there were not numerous persons whose moral sentiments are better than the existing laws.

The longer you hold a belief, the less likely it is to be true.