Felix Frankfurter
Felix Frankfurter
Felix Frankfurterwas a jurist, who served as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Frankfurter was born in Vienna and immigrated to New York at the age of 12. He graduated from Harvard Law School and was active politically, helping to found the American Civil Liberties Union. He was a friend and adviser of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who appointed him to the Supreme Court in 1939. Frankfurter served on the Supreme Court for 23 years, and was...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSupreme Court Justice
Date of Birth15 November 1882
CountryUnited States of America
It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have been forged in controversies involving not very nice people.
The ultimate foundation of a free society is the binding tie of cohesive sentiment.
Ultimately there can be no freedom for self unless it is vouchsafed for others; there can be no security where there is fear, and a democratic society presupposes confidence and candor in the relations of men with one another and eager collaboration for the larger ends of life instead of the pursuit of petty, selfish or vainglorious aims.
We forget that the most successful statesmen have been professionals. Lincoln was a professional politician.
The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself and not what we have said about it.
Appeal must be to an informed, civically militant electorate.
Anybody who is any good is different from anybody else.
It has not been unknown that judges persist in error to avoid giving the appearance of weakness and vacillation.
The Procrustean bed is not a symbol of equality. It is no less inequality to have equality among unequals.
No court can make time stand still.
The line must follow some direction of policy, whether rooted in logic or experience. Lines should not be drawn simply for the sake of drawing lines.
Of compelling consideration is the fact that words acquire scope and function from the history of events which they summarize.
Ambiguity lurks in generality and may thus become an instrument of severity.
A court which yields to the popular will thereby licenses itself to practice despotism, for there can be no assurance that it will not on another occasion indulge its own will.