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The accretion of dangerous power does not come in a day. It does come, however slowly, from the generative force of unchecked disregard of the restrictions that fence in even the most disinterested assertion of authority.

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
Force
Restriction
Political
Disregard
Power
Assertion
Doe
Fence
Accretion
Come
Slowly
Generative
Even
However
Unchecked
Authority
Disinterested
Dangerous
Restrictions

More quotes by 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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To some lawyers, all facts are created equal.
Felix Frankfurter
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No court can make time stand still.
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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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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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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Old age and sickness bring out the essential characteristics of a man.
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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Gratitude is one of the least articulate of the emotions, especially when it is deep.
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 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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Appeal must be to an informed, civically militant electorate.
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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The eternal struggle in the law between constancy and change is largely a struggle between history and reason, between past reason and present needs.
Felix Frankfurter
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To be effective, judicial administration must not be leaden-footed.
Felix Frankfurter
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I don’t like a man to be too efficient. He’s likely to be not human enough.
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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Government is itself an art, one of the subtlest of the arts. It is neither business, nor technology, nor applied science. It is the art of making men live together in peace and with reasonable happiness.
Felix Frankfurter
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Democracy is always a beckoning goal, not a safe harbor. For freedom is an unremitting endeavor, never a final achievement.
Felix Frankfurter