Quotes from Felix Frankfurter

There is no inevitability in history except as men make it.

It is hostile to a democratic system to involve the judiciary in the politics of the people.

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

Freedom of speech and of the press are essential to the enlightenment of a free people and in restraining those who wield power.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Answers are not obtained by putting the wrong question and thereby begging the real one.

It would be a narrow conception of jurisprudence to confine the notion of "laws" to what is found written on the statute books, and to disregard the gloss which life has written upon it.

The mode by which the inevitable is reached is effort.

No court can make time stand still.

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

In a democratic society like ours, relief must come through an aroused popular conscience that sears the conscience of the people's representatives.

One who belongs to the most vilified and persecuted minority in history is not likely to be insensible to the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution…. But as judges we are neither Jew nor Gentile, neither Catholic nor agnostic.

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

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

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

The [Fifteenth] Amendment nullifies sophisticated as well as simple-minded modes of discrimination.

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.