David Josiah Brewer
David Josiah Brewer
David Josiah Brewerwas an American jurist and an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court for 20 years...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJudge
Date of Birth20 June 1837
CountryUnited States of America
often-is oratory delight
Who does not delight in oratory? How we gather to hear even an ordinary speaker! How often is a jury swayed and controlled by the appeals of counsel!
lines honest prestige
He who is honest in his dealings simply because of the social prestige and position it secures will never develop his higher nature, but will always live along the lower lines.
christian religious teaching
I could show how largely our laws and customs are based upon the laws of Moses and the teachings of Christ; how constantly the Bible is appealed to as the guide of life and the authority in questions of morals... Add a volume of unofficial declaration to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.
christian religious teaching
Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise, and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian.
architecture art compels controls convinces dominates hear inspire music oratory time
Oratory is the masterful art. Poetry, painting, music, sculpture, architecture please, thrill, inspire - but oratory rules. The orator dominates those who hear him, convinces their reason, controls their judgment, compels their action. For the time being, he is master.
good less life rests ten
The better life rests less on the prohibitions of the Ten Commandments and more on the parable of the Good Samaritan and the Golden Rule.
ages born control divine glory great mathematics nation patience race thousand truths understand uplift
A nation may be born in a day, but the great truths which make for the glory and uplift of the race only through long ages permeate and control humanity. We must have the divine patience and understand the divine mathematics of a thousand years as one day.
contrary course deserve entitled hold mean men property religion respect tribute trust
Christianity is entitled to the tribute of respect. I do not of course mean that all individuals, nominally Christian, deserve trust, confidence, or even respect, for the contrary is too often the case. Too often, men hold religion as they do property - in their wives' names.
caught cruel dissecting knife magnetic orator perpetuate power preserved save science seize
The phonograph and kinetoscope may some day seize and perpetuate all save the magnetic touch, but that weird, illusive, indefinable yet wonderfully real power by which the orator subdues may never be caught by science or preserved for the cruel dissecting knife of the critic.
beyond history inquiring passed reach sacred scientific time
The time has passed in the history of the world when anything is too sacred to be touched, when anything is beyond the reach of the inquiring and scientific spear.
beyond constant court either helped honoured judgments justices life mistake objects spoken subject suppose supreme
It is a mistake to suppose that the Supreme Court is either honoured or helped by being spoken of as beyond criticism. On the contrary, the life and character of its justices should be the objects of constant watchfulness by all, and its judgments subject to the freest criticism.