Quote

I used to say that, as Solicitor General, I made three arguments of every case. First came the one that I planned-as I thought, logical, coherent, complete. Second was the one actually presented-interrupted, incoherent, disjointed, disappointing. The third was the utterly devastating argument that I thought of after going to bed that night.

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
Three
Case
Arguments
Solicitors
Thought
General
Utterly
Incoherent
Used
Second
Logical
Coherent
Firsts
Cases
Third
Devastating
First
Came
Thirds
Interrupted
Going
Law
Bed
Disappointing
Made
Actually
Complete
Presented
Solicitor
Every
Night
Argument
Planned
Disjointed

More quotes by 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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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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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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This Court is forever adding new stories to the temples of constitutional law, and the temples have a way of collapsing when one story too many is added.
Robert H. Jackson
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The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy. One's right to life, liberty and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly may not be submitted to vote they depend on no elections.
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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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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In this court the parties changed positions as nimbly as if dancing a quadrille.
Robert H. Jackson
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When the Supreme Court moved to Washington in 1800, it was provided with no books, which probably accounts for the high quality of early opinions.
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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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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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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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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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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I see no reason why I should be consciously wrong today because I was unconsciously wrong yesterday.
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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The duty to disclose knowledge of crime rests upon all citizens.
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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Men are more often bribed by their loyalties and ambitions than by money.
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