Quote #11

I do not know whether it is the view of the Court that a judge must be thick-skinned or just thick-headed, but nothing in my experience or observation confirms the idea that he is insensitive to publicity. Who does not prefer good to ill report of his work? And if fame - a good public name - is, as Milton said, the 'last infirmity of noble mind', it is frequently the first infirmity of a mediocre one.

More from Robert H. Jackson

  1. [T]he effect of the religious freedom Amendment to our Constitution was to take every form of propagation of religion out of the realm of t…
  2. The Court's reasoning adds up to this: The Commission must be sustained because of its accumulated experience in solving a problem with whi…
  3. Korematsu was born on our soil, of parents born in Japan. The Constitution makes him a citizen of the United States by nativity and a citiz…
  4. No one will question that this power is the most dangerous one to free government in the whole catalogue of powers. It usually is invoked i…
  5. 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 tha…
  6. Under these circumstances, except for any personal humiliation involved in admitting that I do not always understand the opinions of this C…
  7. A confession is wholly and incontestably voluntary only if a guilty person gives himself up to the law and becomes his own accuser.
  8. But we have grounds to assume also that the normal proportion of them are subject to that very human weakness, especially displayed in Wash…

All Robert H. Jackson quotes