Aristotle Quotes

In the legislative branch, you make the laws... and our role as judges is to interpret the law, not to inject our own policy preferences. So our task is to give an honest construction to what laws are passed by the Legislature.

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.

My job is to interpret the law based on how the legislature and the court has done it and then, of course, to use our system of justice to develop some new legal tools and new concepts.

When we visited with legislative counsel, they told us that the only way to effectively accomplish what we were trying to do was to put the words in the legislation.

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

It is best that laws should be so constructed as to leave as little as possible to the decision of those who judge.

Legislative proposals are not merely vehicles for expressing policy, they are devices for getting policy decided.

Mere precedent is a dangerous source of authority.

The rules of legal interpretation are rules of common sense, adopted by the courts in the construction of the laws.

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

I certainly would not vote against a particular judge already in office because of a decision in a case. You may not agree with a judge's decision, but the judge must act within the law.

My approach to deciding cases is I look at the law, I look at the facts, and I do my best to apply the law to the facts and make a decision based on the law and the facts.

Courts do not make the law.

Judges should always behave judicially by adjudicating, never politically by legislating. I leave policy to policymakers. They're preeminent, but they're not omnipotent. In other words, lawmakers decide if laws pass, but judges decide if laws pass muster.

Were I confirmed as a judge, I would decide cases according to the rule of law beginning to end.

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

The dominant color of politics is gray; difficult choices and compromise are required at almost every step of the journey toward a major new program.

I have never seen the author of a reform bill who was able to predict accurately what would really happen when the bill was passed.

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.

Great cases like hard cases make bad law.

Whenever the words of a law will bear two meanings, one of which will give effect to the law, and the other will defeat it, the former must be supposed to have been intended by the Legislature, because they could not intend that meaning, which would defeat their intention, in passing that law; and in a statute, as in a will, the intention of the party is to be sought after

Common sense is the foundation of all authorities, of the laws themselves, and of their construction

There is not, in the whole compass of human affairs, so noble a spectacle as that which is displayed in the progress of jurisprudence; where we may contemplate the cautious and unwearied exertion of a succession of wise men, through a long course of ages, withdrawing every case, as it arises, from the dangerous power of discretion, and subjecting it to inflexible rules.

It makes courts rely on federal and state law when deciding cases. It forbids courts from considering or using international law. It forbids courts from considering or using Sharia Law. It makes courts rely on federal and state law when deciding cases. It forbids courts from considering or using international law. It forbids courts from considering or using Sharia Law.