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

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
Free
Means
Ends
Mean
Presses
Press
Liberty
Society
Freedom

More quotes by Felix Frankfurter

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No judge writes on a wholly clean slate.
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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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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It is a wise man who said that there is no greater inequality than the equal treatment of unequals.
Felix Frankfurter
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Judicial judgment must take deep account...of the day before yesterday in order that yesterday may not paralyze today.
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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It simply is not true that war never settles anything.
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. 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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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
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It has not been unknown that judges persist in error to avoid giving the appearance of weakness and vacillation.
Felix Frankfurter
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While it is not always profitable to analogize fact to fiction, La Fontaine's fable of the crow, the cheese, and the fox demonstrates that there is a substantial difference between holding a piece of cheese in the beak and putting it in the stomach.
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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Future lawyers should be more aware that law is not a system of abstract logic, but the web of arrangements, rooted in history but also in hopes, for promoting to a maximum the full use of a nation's resources and talents.
Felix Frankfurter
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Answers are not obtained by putting the wrong question and thereby begging the real one.
Felix Frankfurter
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After all, advocates, including advocates for States, are like managers of pugilistic and election contestants in that they have a propensity for claiming everything.
Felix Frankfurter
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The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself, and not what we have said about it.
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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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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The dynamo of our economic system is self-interest which may range from mere petty greed to admirable types of self-expression.
Felix Frankfurter