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

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Gratitude is one of the least articulate of the emotions, especially when it is deep.
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I know of no title that I deem more honorable than that of Professor of the Harvard Law School.
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If nowhere else, in the relation between Church and State, good fences make good neighbors.
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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.
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It simply is not true that war never settles anything.
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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.
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There is torture of mind as well as body the will is as much affected by fear as by force. And there comes a point where this Court should not be ignorant as judges of what we know as men.
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There is no inevitability in history except as men make it.
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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.
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Answers are not obtained by putting the wrong question and thereby begging the real one.
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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.
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It would be a narrow conception of jurisprudence to confine the notion of laws to what is found written on the statute books, and to disregard the gloss which life has written upon it.
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Anybody who is any good is different from anybody else.
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Morals are three-quarters manners.
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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.
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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.
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Democracy is always a beckoning goal, not a safe harbor. For freedom is an unremitting endeavor, never a final achievement.
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The ultimate foundation of a free society is the binding tie of cohesive sentiment.
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To some lawyers, all facts are created equal.
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