Judicial judgment must take deep account of the day before yesterday in order that yesterday may not paralyze today.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of learning from the past to avoid being hindered in the present.
Felix Frankfurter's quote highlights the necessity of considering historical context when making judicial decisions. It advocates for a judicial system that recognizes the lessons of the past, which can inform and guide today's choices, thereby preventing outdated judgments from stifling progress and justice in contemporary society.
In practice
In a legal seminar discussing the importance of precedent, one could quote Frankfurter to emphasize the role of history in law.
Ultimately there can be no freedom for self unless it is vouchsafed for others; there can be no security where there is fear, and a democratic society presupposes confidence and candor in the relations of men with one another and eager collaboration for the larger ends of life instead of the pursuit of petty, selfish or vainglorious aims.
The accretion of dangerous power does not come in a day. It does come, however slowly, from the generative force of unchecked disregard of the restrictions that fence in even the most disinterested assertion of authority.
Democracy is always a beckoning goal, not a safe harbor. For freedom is an unremitting endeavor, never a final achievement.
Without a free press there can be no free society. That is axiomatic. However, freedom of the press is not an end in itself but a means to the end of a free society. The scope and nature of the constitutional guarantee of the freedom of the press are to be viewed and applied in that light.
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.
Litigation is the pursuit of practical ends, not a game of chess.
I care so much about everything that I care about nothing.
Rain which falls upon the sea is useless; so is food for one who is satiated; in vain is a gift for one who is wealthy; and a burning lamp during the daytime is useless.
Words will not fail when the matter is well considered.
Self-disciplined begins with the mastery of your thoughts. If you don't control what you think, you can't control what you do. Simply, self-discipline enables you to think first and act afterward.
Sometimes the simplest and best use of our will is to drop it all and just walk out from under everything that is covering us, even if only for an hour or soβjust walk out from under the webs we've spun, the tasks we've assumed, the problems we have to solve. They'll be there when we get back, and maybe some of them will fall apart without our worry to hold them up.
Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.
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