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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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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
Stomach
History
Cast
Order
Police
Cannot
Court
Mind
Hold
Convict
Would
Course
Convicts
Men
Responsibility
Extract
Upon
Constitutional

More quotes by 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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In the first place, lawyers better remember they are human beings, and a human being who hasn't his periods of doubts and distresses and disappointments must be a cabbage, not a human being. That is number one.
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Judicial judgment must take deep account...of the day before yesterday in order that yesterday may not paralyze today.
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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.
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Appeal must be to an informed, civically militant electorate.
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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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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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The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes.
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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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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.
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.
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We recognize that stare decisis embodies an important social policy that represents an element of continuity in law and is rooted in the psychological need to satisfy reasonable expectations.
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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.
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To be effective, judicial administration must not be leaden-footed.
Felix Frankfurter
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No court can make time stand still.
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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The ultimate foundation of a free society is the binding tie of cohesive sentiment.
Felix Frankfurter
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To some lawyers, all facts are created equal.
Felix Frankfurter
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If nowhere else, in the relation between Church and State, good fences make good neighbors.
Felix Frankfurter
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No judge writes on a wholly clean slate.
Felix Frankfurter