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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.

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
Wells
Ignorant
Well
Judging
Much
Court
Mind
Point
Men
Force
Fear
Judges
Comes
Torture
Body
Affected

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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.
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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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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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No judge writes on a wholly clean slate.
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The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself, and not what we have said about it.
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It has not been unknown that judges persist in error to avoid giving the appearance of weakness and vacillation.
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Ours is an accusatorial, and not an inquisitorial, system - a system in which the State must establish guilt by evidence independently and freely secured, and may not, by coercion, prove its charge against an accused out of his own mouth.
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The Procrustean bed is not a symbol of equality. It is no less inequality to have equality among unequals.
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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.
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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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The ultimate foundation of a free society is the binding tie of cohesive sentiment.
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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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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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The mark of a truly civilized man is confidence in the strength and security derived from the inquiring mind.
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There is no inevitability in history except as men make it.
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It is a wise man who said that there is no greater inequality than the equal treatment of unequals.
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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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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.
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The words of the Constitution... are so unrestricted by their intrinsic meaning or by their history or by tradition or by prior decisions that they leave the individual Justice free, if indeed they do not compel him, to gather meaning not from reading the Constitution but from reading life.
Felix Frankfurter
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Old age and sickness bring out the essential characteristics of a man.
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