Felix Frankfurter

“Anybody can decide a question if only a single principle is in controversy.”

“The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes.”

“Old age and sickness bring out the essential characteristics of a man.”

“Litigation is the pursuit of practical ends, not a game of chess.”

“It must take account of what it decrees for today in order that today may not paralyze tomorrow.”

“The mode by which the inevitable is reached is effort.”

“The mark of a truly civilized man is confidence in the strength and security derived from the inquiring mind.”

“As a member of this court I am not justified in writing my private notions of policy into the Constitution, no matter how deeply I may cherish them or how mischievous I may deem their disregard.”

“It is a wise man who said that there is no greater inequality than the equal treatment of unequals.”

“It simply is not true that war never settles anything.”

“It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have been forged in controversies involving not very nice people.”

“Freedom of the press is not an end in itself but a means to the end of achieving a free society.”

“I don't like a man to be too efficient. He's likely to be not human enough.”

“It is anomalous to hold that in order to convict a man the police cannot extract by force what is in his mind, but can extract what is in his stomach.”

“Judicial judgment must take deep account of the day before yesterday in order that yesterday may not paralyze today.”

“All our work, our whole life is a matter of semantics, because words are the tools with which we work, the material out of which laws are made, out of which the Constitution was written. Everything depends on our understanding of them.”

“The history of liberty has largely been the history of the observance of procedural safeguards.”

“Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.”

“To some lawyers, all facts are created equal.”

“There can be no security where there is fear.”