Quotes · Skopia

9 quotes

SortEditorial Year Length

Person·Robert H. Jackson✕clear

The common sense of mankind demands that law shall not stop with the punishment of petty crimes by little people. It must also reach men who posses themselves of great power and make deliberate and concerted use of it to set in motion evils which leave no home in the world untouched.

Robert H. Jackson

1945

★ 1.8

The first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave responsibility. The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated.

Robert H. Jackson

1945

★ 1.8

Supreme Court opinion · Legal opinion · Legal writing

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.

Robert H. Jackson

West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette · 1943

★ 3.5

That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason.

Robert H. Jackson

1945

★ 3.5

Courtroom speech · Speech

If you were to say of these men that they are not guilty, it would be as true to say there has been no war, there are no slain, there has been no crime.

Robert H. Jackson

1946

★ 3.5

Supreme Court opinion · Legal opinion · Legal writing

It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error.

Robert H. Jackson

American Communications Assn. v. Douds · 1950

★ 3.5

Supreme Court opinion · Legal opinion · Legal writing

The day that this country ceases to be free for irreligion, it will cease to be free for religion—except for the sect that can win political power.

Robert H. Jackson

Zorach v. Clauson · 1952

★ 4.4

Supreme Court opinion · Legal opinion · Legal writing

There is no doubt that, if there were a super-Supreme Court, a substantial proportion of our reversals of state courts would also be reversed. We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final.

Robert H. Jackson

Brown v. Allen · 1953

★ 5.1

Supreme Court opinion · Legal opinion · Legal writing

The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials, and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.

Robert H. Jackson

West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette · 1943

★ 6.8