Thomas Jefferson Quotes

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

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 first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it.

We do not sit as a superlegislature to weigh the wisdom of legislation.

What right does Congress have to go around making laws just because they deem it necessary?

Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse torture than the torture of laws.

When Congress writes a good law, then there are fewer lawsuits trying to interpret it.

Whatever may have been the intention of the framers of a constitution, or of a law, that intention is to be sought for in the instrument itself, according to the usual and established rules of construction.

The legislature makes, the executive executes, and the judiciary construes the law.

Legislatures now pass statutes because of, not despite, their lack of clarity. By using vague language, legislators can avoid making the difficult political choices that they have to confront when drafting a statute precisely.

… courts do not substitute their social and economic beliefs for the judgment of legislative bodies, who are elected to pass laws

We are too apt, in estimating a law passed at a remote period, to combine in our consideration, all the subsequent events which have had an influence upon it, instead of confining ourselves (which we ought to do) to the existing circumstances at the time of its passing.

The greatest defect in legislative history is its illegitimacy. We are governed not by legislative intention but by laws… the text should control even if the Congress intended a different result

Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.

What five members of the Supreme Court say the law is may be something vastly different from what Congress intended the law to be.

The constitution is either a superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it. It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. This is the very essence of judicial duty.

If a Statute make use of a Word the meaning of which is well-known at the Common Law, such word shall be taken in the same Sense it was understood at the common Law.

The difference between the departments undoubtedly is, that the legislature makes, the executive executes, and the judiciary construes the law.

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

Constitutions are interpreted differently from statutes.

Legislative power is always superior to the executive.

They who make laws may without doubt amend or repeal them.

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.

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

The peculiar circumstances of the moment may render a measure more or less wise, but cannot render it more or less constitutional.