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The very purpose of a bill of rights is to withdraw certain subjects from...political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities.

Robert H. Jackson

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Robert H. Jackson
Age: 62 †
Born: 1892
Born: February 13
Died: 1954
Died: October 9
Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Judge
Lawyer
Politician
Robert Houghwout Jackson
Majorities
Subjects
Withdraw
Beyond
Rights
Controversy
Purpose
Bill
Political
Bills
Place
Reach
Certain
Majority
Constitution

More quotes by Robert H. Jackson

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But the validity of a doctrine does not depend on whose ox it gores.
Robert H. Jackson
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Perhaps you have heard about the college executives who were discussing what they wanted to do after retirement age. One hoped to run a prison or school of correction so that the alumni would never come back to visit. Another chose to manage an orphan asylum so that he would not be plagued with advice from parents.
Robert H. Jackson
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In this court the parties changed positions as nimbly as if dancing a quadrille.
Robert H. Jackson
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The day that this country ceases to be free for irreligion it will cease to be free for religion - except for the sect that can win political power.
Robert H. Jackson
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Your job today tells me nothing of your future--your use of your leisure today tells me just what your tomorrow will be.
Robert H. Jackson
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Education should be a lifelong process, the formal period serving as a foundation on which life's structure may rest and rise.
Robert H. Jackson
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Due process requires some definite link, some minimum connection, between a state and the person, property or transaction it seeks to tax.
Robert H. Jackson
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Men are more often bribed by their loyalties and ambitions than by money.
Robert H. Jackson
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We are not final because we are infallible, but infallible only because we are final.
Robert H. Jackson
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It is only the words of the bill that have presidential approval, where that approval is given. It is not to be supposed that in signing a bill the President endorses the whole Congressional Record.
Robert H. Jackson
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That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason.
Robert H. Jackson
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In our country are evangelists and zealots of many different political, economic and religious persuasions whose fanatical conviction is that all thought is divinely classified into two kinds - that which is their own and that which is false and dangerous.
Robert H. Jackson
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Our people do not want barren theories from their democracy. Maury Maverick has expressed very quaintly, but clearly, what they really want when he says: 'We Americans want to talk, pray, think as we please and eat regular'.
Robert H. Jackson
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The physical power to get the money does not seem to me a test of the right to tax. Might does not make right even in taxation. To hold that what the use of official authority may get the state may keep, and that if it cannot get hold of a nonresident stockholder it may hold the company as hostage for him, is strange constitutional doctrine to me.
Robert H. Jackson
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The duty to disclose knowledge of crime rests upon all citizens.
Robert H. Jackson
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It is possible to hold a faith with enough confidence to believe that what should be rendered to God does not need to be decided and collected by Caesar.
Robert H. Jackson
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There is danger that, if the Court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.
Robert H. Jackson
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Not every defeat of authority is a gain for individual freedom, nor every judicial rescue of a convict a victory for liberty.
Robert H. Jackson
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One's right to life, liberty, and property depends on the outcome of no election.
Robert H. Jackson
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I see no reason why I should be consciously wrong today because I was unconsciously wrong yesterday.
Robert H. Jackson