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

Felix Frankfurter

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Felix Frankfurter
Age: 82 †
Born: 1882
Born: November 15
Died: 1965
Died: February 22
Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Judge
Lawyer
Politician
Vienna
Austria
Security
Mind
Inquiring
Men
Derived
Civilized
Mark
Confidence
Truly
Strength

More quotes by Felix Frankfurter

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The dynamo of our economic system is self-interest which may range from mere petty greed to admirable types of self-expression.
Felix Frankfurter
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Gratitude is one of the least articulate of the emotions, especially when it is deep. I can express with very limited adequacy the passionate devotion to this land that possesses millions of our people, born, like myself, under other skies, for the privilege that that this county has bestowed in allowing them to partake of its fellowship.
Felix Frankfurter
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Anybody who is any good is different from anybody else.
Felix Frankfurter
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The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes.
Felix Frankfurter
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I know of no title that I deem more honorable than that of Professor of the Harvard Law School.
Felix Frankfurter
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To be effective, judicial administration must not be leaden-footed.
Felix Frankfurter
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Fragile as reason is and limited as law is as the institutionalised medium of reason, that's all we have between us and the tyranny of mere will and the cruelty of unbridled, undisciplined feelings.
Felix Frankfurter
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No office in the land is more important than that of being a citizen.
Felix Frankfurter
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One is entitled to say without qualification that the correlation between prior judicial experience and fitness for the Supreme Court is zero.
Felix Frankfurter
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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.
Felix Frankfurter
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Is that which was deemed to be of so fundamental a nature as to be written into the Constitution to endure for all times to be the sport of shifting winds of doctrine?
Felix Frankfurter
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It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have been forged in controversies involving not very nice people.
Felix Frankfurter
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If one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can. That means first chaos, then tyranny. Legal process is an essential part of the democratic process.
Felix Frankfurter
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It would be a stultification of the responsibility which the course of constitutional history has cast upon this Court 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.
Felix Frankfurter
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It is important not to give the appearance of a predisposed mind. And it is more important not to let the mind become predisposed.
Felix Frankfurter
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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.
Felix Frankfurter
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For the highest exercise of judicial duty is to subordinate one's personal pulls and one's private views to the law of which we are all guaradians - those impersonal convictions that made a society a civilized community, and not the victims of personal rule.
Felix Frankfurter
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Gratitude is one of the least articulate of the emotions, especially when it is deep.
Felix Frankfurter
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Old age and sickness bring out the essential characteristics of a man.
Felix Frankfurter
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Liberty of thought soon shrivels without freedom of expression. Nor can truth be pursued in an atmosphere hostile to the endeavor or under dangers which are hazarded only by heroes.
Felix Frankfurter