Arthur Goldberg Quotes

People expect that the law will be what the Supreme Court told them what the law was going to be.

It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.

I also believe that the Supreme Court should be the final arbiter of all federal questions.

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

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

What secret knowledge, one must wonder, is breathed into lawyers when they become Justices of this Court that enables them to discern that a practice which the text of the Constitution does not clearly proscribe, and which our people have regarded as constitutional for 200 years, is in fact unconstitutional?

An essential function of the Court is to revise incorrect or outdated prior rulings. Over the last century, the Court has overruled itself about twice a year—roughly the same rate at which the Court has overturned acts of Congress.

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

Constitutions are interpreted differently from statutes.

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

Remember when John Roberts was seeking confirmation of the Supreme Court, and he said judges should be just like umpires, just calling balls and strikes? Well, turnabout is fair play. What baseball needs behind the plate are umpires like those judges who are called strict constructionists, which means you follow subtle law to the letter.

Courts do not make the law.

On the whole, we think of our consumers - other judges, lawyers, the public. The law that the Supreme Court establishes is the law that they must live by, so all things considered, it's better to have it clearer than confusing.

A Supreme Court justice must convince at least four colleagues to bind the federal government nationwide, whereas a district court judge issuing a nationwide injunction needn't convince anyone.

Judges should decide legal disputes. Judges should not make law.

Even a single Justice can have a profound impact on the country.

Supreme Court precedents strictly bind lower courts, but they do not bind the Supreme Court itself. Indeed, an essential function of the Court is to revise incorrect or outdated prior rulings. Over the last century, the Court has overruled itself about twice a year—roughly the same rate at which the Court has overturned acts of Congress.

A Supreme Court decision does not establish a "supreme law of the land" that is binding on all persons and parts of government, henceforth and forevermore.

I think the Supreme Court does have the authority, which is not used, to declare a blanket right for all people, all adults.

We may have lured judges into roaming at large in the constitutional field.

I do hope that some of my dissents will one day be the law.

Most high courts in other nations do not have discretion, such as we enjoy, in selecting the cases that the high court reviews. Our court is virtually alone in the amount of discretion it has.

The Supreme Court's only armor is the cloak of public trust; its sole ammunition, the collective hopes of our society.

The reversal of a Supreme Court opinion is possible.