Robert H. Jackson Quotes

Presidents come and go, but the Supreme Court goes on forever.

No nation can answer for perfect exactitude of proceedings in all their inferior courts. It suffices to provide a supreme judicature where all error and partiality will be ultimately corrected

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 judicial power of every well-constituted government must be coextensive with the legislative, and must be capable of deciding every judicial question which grows out of the Constitution and laws.

The imperial judiciary lives.

The Supreme Court does not get very reckless very often.

The most fundamental question of all the legitimacy of judicial review itself.

If you're a Supreme Court justice, the American people have elevated you to one of the highest offices in the land out of the goodness of their heart and out of deference to your legal wisdom. You get a lifetime appointment, limitless prestige, a great office, and what I have to assume is a very comfortable chair.

There's no such thing as judicial supremacy.

A judge is not a god or a king. He has the last word most of the time, but sometimes, one makes mistakes.

We depend on the Supreme Court to uphold the integrity of our government.

When, after having examined in detail the organization of the Supreme Court, one comes to consider in sum the prerogatives that have been given it, one discovers without difficulty that a more immense judicial power has never been constituted in any people.

The position the Government finds itself in is not one of constructing a law, but of carrying out a decision given by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

Judges wear legal professionalism and precedent as a mantel that secures legitimacy for their decisions. It's how they distinguish themselves from politicians or administrative agencies, while wielding power that is sometimes much greater than those democratically accountable actors.

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

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 Supreme Court, once in existence, cannot be abolished, because its foundation is not in an act of the legislative department of the Government, but in the Constitution of the United States.

Federal judges are just very reluctant to stick the government with responsibility.

My feeling is that the judge has a responsibility to the Constitution first, precedent second. Precedent is one factor. It is not the only factor. If it was the only factor, then, you know, we wouldn't have had Roe vs. Wade. We wouldn't have had Griswold. We wouldn't have had Lawrence. We wouldn't have had all these cases which the Left love.

You want to know what judicial activism is? Judicial activism is judges imposing their policy preferences on the words of the Constitution.

The fact that the judiciary makes foolish rulings doesn’t mean the government should intervene.

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.

The [Supreme] Court did not interpret the Constitution—the court amended it.

The great tides and currents which engulf the rest of men do not turn aside in their course and pass the judges by.

The real difficulty is not with the Constitution but with the judges who interpret it.