Antonin Scalia Quotes

It is the merit of the common law that it decides the case first and determines the principles afterward.

Stare decisis is the policy of the court to stand by precedent;  the term is but an abbreviation of “stare decisis et non quieta movere”--to stand by and adhere to decisions and not disturb what is settled.

I think justices of all stripes agree that stare decisis is important, but not an inextricable command. It's not inflexible; it's not absolute.

You’ve got to expect that there will be twists and turns [in court opinions], especially with major doctrine.

Great cases like hard cases make bad law.

When the Supreme Court renders an important decision, the reasons it gives are often more important than the choice it has made.

Bad facts make bad law.

I take judge-made law as one of the existing realities of life.

The rules and principles of case law have never been treated as final truths but as working hypotheses, continually retested in those great laboratories of the law, the courts of justice. Every new case is an experiment, and if the accepted rule which seems applicable yields a result which is felt to be unjust, the rule is reconsidered.

One precedent creates another and they soon accumulate and constitute law. What yesterday was a fact, today is doctrine.

One precedent creates another. They soon accumulate and constitute law. What yesterday was fact, today is doctrine.

Law is not a science, but is essentially empirical.

Law is the prophecy of what a court will do.

What is today supported by precedents will hereafter become a precedent.

There is nothing certain in the principles of jurisprudence.

I always look for judges who respect precedent.

The Supreme Court overrules, distinguishes, and upholds prior precedents. Sometimes it ignores them. But it does not - cannot - 'defy' them.

The decisions of law courts should never be printed: in the long run, they form a counter authority to the law.

The value of a decision as a precedent is very much enhanced by the care with which it has been considered, and if the opinion itself shows that other decisions of the same court, or of other courts upon the same point, have been reviewed and examined, it adds to the value of the decision made on each consideration.

Law is a formless mass of isolated decisions.

General propositions do not decide concrete cases.

Though in many other countries everything is left in the breast of the Judge to determine, yet with us he is only to declare and pronounce, not to make or new-model the law.

Judges ought to remember that their office is Ius dicere and not Ius dare; to interpret law, and not to make law, or give law.

Mere precedent is a dangerous source of authority.

All new laws, though penned with the greatest technical skill, and passed on the fullest and most mature deliberation, are considered as more or less obscure and equivocal, until their meaning be liquidated and ascertained by a series of particular discussions and adjudications.