Felix Frankfurter Quotes

It's important not to get into the business of characterizing judges based on one decision they make

I don't suggest we ought to be able to pressure judges, but we ought to be able to criticize [them] when we think they've made a mistake

I don't know how a judge can concentrate on being fair and impartial when he or she is faced with possible jail time for making a decision that others deem incorrect.

All judges have cases that touch our passions deeply, but we all struggle constantly with remaining impartial.

If a judge does his job right, you [the observer] will never know how he personally feels about the policies he may have to rule on.

Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps.

Judges ... rule on the basis of law, not public opinion, and they should be totally indifferent to pressures of the times.

A judge who likes every outcome he reaches is very likely a bad judge... stretching for results he prefers rather than those the law demands.

The worst thing you want is a willy-nilly judge who is swayed by the political whims of the era or the time. What you want is a judge who is thinking about what he or she is doing and is thinking about it in a principled way.

I think when judges are in the position of authority, they really get bent out of shape when someone tells them they acted inappropriately.

If the country comes to believe that judges are politicians in robes no end of difficulty will come from that.

That's what you want in a judge—someone who can take the heat after following his or her own conscience.

We must keep in mind the vast power entrusted to Federal judges. They never stand for election. Once appointed, they serve for life. The havoc that a Federal District Court Judge can wreak is substantial.

Our Constitution was not written in the sands to be washed away by each successive wave of new judges blown in by each successive political wind.

As, for the safety of society, we commit honest maniacs to Bedlam, so judges should be withdrawn from the bench, whose erroneous biases are leading us to dissolution.

A judge's duty is to grant justice, but his practice is to delay it: even those judges who know their duty adhere to the general practice.

The state in commissioning its judges has commanded them to judge, but neither in constitution nor in statute has it formulated a code to define the manner of their judging.

The judge may not … express his … personal beliefs ... as to what is right or just

I have written this treatise because there are judges who decide cases according to their own will rather than by the authority of the laws

We don't pay judges to think; we pay judges to rule on the law.

If you're going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you're not always going to like the conclusions you reach. If you like them all the time, you're probably doing something wrong.

A judge who likes every opinion he reaches is a bad judge.

It's simply not bias for a judge to explain her reasoning in a dissent.

Judges certainly have political connections and strong political views, but that doesn't mean they can't rise above politics when they hear cases. We expect them to, and the law presumes they do.

If the courts are making the decisions, it matters who the judge is and, of course, people are concerned with what is the bottom line.