As a member of this court I am not justified in writing my private notions of policy into the Constitution, no matter how deeply I may cherish them or how mischievous I may deem their disregard.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the separation between personal beliefs and the responsibilities of a judicial member.
Felix Frankfurter highlights the importance of adhering to the Constitution and the rule of law over personal preferences. This statement reflects the principle that judges should not let their individual opinions influence their judicial decisions, ensuring that the law remains impartial and objective, rather than being swayed by personal feelings or biases.
In practice
During a legal conference discussing the role of judges in modern governance.
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.
We must beware the revenge of the starved senses, the embittered animal in its prison.
Our histories cling to us. We are shaped by where we come from.
We should cast aside all childish games that fetter and exhaust body, speech and mind._x000D_ _x000D_ Stretching out in inconceivable nonaction, in the unstructured matrix, the actuality of emptiness, _x000D_ _x000D_ where the natural perfection of reality lies, we should gaze at the uncontrived sameness of every experience, _x000D_ _x000D_ all conditioning and ambition resolved with finality.
When you know your name, you should hang on to it, for unless it is noted down and remembered, it will die when you do.
The word 'innocence' means a mind that is incapable of being hurt.
The world is all a carcass and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play _x000D_ And in one word, just nothing.
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