Felix Frankfurter Quotes

The indispensible judicial requisite is intellectual humility.

I think judicial temperament is a willingness to step back from your own committed views of the correct jurisprudential approach and evaluate those views in terms of your role as a judge. It's the difference between being a judge and being a law professor.

Judges have to have the humility to recognize that they operate within a system of precedent, shaped by other judges equally striving to live up to the judicial oath.

Any successful nominee should possess both the temperament to interpret the law and the wisdom to do so fairly. The next Supreme Court Justice should have a record of protecting individual rights and a strong willingness to put aside any political agenda.

All judges have cases that touch our passions deeply, but we all struggle constantly with remaining impartial.

I do not think that we should select judges based on a particular philosophy as opposed to temperament, commitment to judicial neutrality and commitment to other more constant values as to which there is general consensus.

Having a judicious temperament is far more important than having a consistent judicial methodology.

…putting on a robe doesn’t make me any smarter. […] But […] the robe does mean something – and not just that I can hide coffee stains on my shirt. Putting on a robe reminds us that it’s time to lose our egos and open our minds. It serves, too, as a reminder of the modest station we judges are meant to occupy in a democracy. In other countries, judges wear scarlet, silk, and ermine. Here, we judges buy our own plain black robes. And I can report that the standard choir outfit at the local uniform supply store is a pretty good deal. Ours is a judiciary of honest black polyester.

I don't want to get into predicting how Judge Gorsuch would vote on the Supreme Court as a Justice Gorsuch. But I will say that those of us who've seen him in court as a judge, those of us who have worked with him as I have on a appellate rules committee, understand that this is a man who brings independence and integrity to the job.

Justice is not to be taken by storm. She is to be wooed by slow advances. Substitute statute for decision, and you shift the center of authority, but add no quota of inspired wisdom.

[J]udges, therefore, should be always men of learning and experience in the laws, of exemplary morals, great patience, calmness, coolness, and attention. Their minds should not be distracted with jarring interests; they should not be dependent upon any man, or body of men.

Scorecards are common in the political process, but they are inappropriate in the judicial process. The most important tools in the judicial confirmation process are not litmus paper and a calculator.

Irritable Judges suffer from a bad case of premature adjudication.

Obama's attitude toward the rule of law is apparent in the words he used to describe what he is looking for in a nominee to replace Justice David Souter. He wants 'someone who understands justice is not just about some abstract legal theory,' he said, but someone who has 'empathy.' In other words, judges should decide cases so that the right people win, not according to the rule of law.

I just do the job to the best of my ability and then you have to move on. You have to watch things back to learn from them, but I try not to dwell or worry about what people might think. I don't read reviews if I can help it.

I had the good fortune to begin my legal career as a law clerk for a judge who really epitomized open-mindedness and fairness. He read the record in detail in every single case that came before me; he insisted on scrupulously following precedents.

I will not be modest. Humble, as much as you like, but not modest. Modesty is the virtue of the lukewarm.

The truth is, that, even with the most secure tenure of office, during good behavior, the danger is not, that the judges will be too firm in resisting public opinion, and in defence of private rights or public liberties; but, that they will be ready to yield themselves to the passions, and politics, and prejudices of the day.

Nominees [to Supreme Court] shouldn't be expected to pre-commit to ruling on certain issues in a certain way. Nor should senators ask nominees to pledge to rule on issues in a particular way.

When I became a judge, I stopped being a practicing attorney. And that was a big change in role.The role of a practicing attorney is to achieve a desirable result for the client in the particular case at hand. But a judge can't think that way. A judge can't have any agenda, a judge can't have any preferred outcome in any particular case and a judge certainly doesn't have a client.

Knowing that religion does not furnish grosser bigots than law, I expect little from old judges.

When you’re training Parkour with passion, if you’re good, people will notice you. Don’t go around saying, ‘Hey look at this new move I got.’ No. We used to say, ‘If it’s good we’ll tell you.’ Do it for yourself first.

Not that I've always agreed with what she said - far from it - but Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has been properly lauded, in my view, as a judge who approached her duties with open-mindedness and with a sensitivity that affects her decisions would have on everyday, ordinary people.

If you want know what sort of a justice I would make, then look at what sort of a judge I have been.

We must remember that we have to make judges out of men, and that by being made judges their prejudices are not diminished and their intelligence is not increased.