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About this quote

What does it mean?
If everyone decides their own law, chaos and tyranny follow; legal process is necessary for democracy.
In plain terms
If everyone makes their own laws, chaos comes. Legal process is needed for democracy.
What can you take from it?
Legal process prevents chaos and tyranny.

Where it applies

  • civil unrest
  • lawlessness
  • governance

Putting it to work

  • follow due process
  • support legal systems
  • reject vigilante justice

Questions to consider

  • Why is legal process essential?
  • What happens without agreed laws?

Another view

Rigid legal processes can sometimes fail to address urgent moral needs.

More from Felix Frankfurter

  1. A phrase begins life as a literary expression; its felicity leads to its lazy repetition; and repetition soon establishes it as a legal formula, undiscriminati…

    Permalink to quote #4
  2. Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.

    Permalink to quote #6
  3. No court can make time stand still.

    Permalink to quote #3

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