Posterity, n. An appellate court which reverses the judgment of a popular author’s contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure competitor.
Court Quotes
Since what one Court can do, another can undo, in the long run it seems to me that those who wish to keep religion out of the public life of a free society should look primarily to the educational processes of democracy itself rather than to the decrees of the Court to extend the secular […]
A crowded police court docket is the surest of all signs that trade is brisk and money plenty.
If there is any truth to the old proverb that “one who is his own lawyer, has a fool for a client,” the Court… now bestows a constitutional right on one to make a fool of himself.
We granted certiorari, and in this Court the parties changed positions as nimbly as if dancing a quadrille.
Bluster, sputter, question, cavil; but be sure your argument be intricate enough to confound the court.
The judge’s authority derives entirely from the fact that he is applying the law and not his personal values. That is why the American public accepts the decisions of its courts, accepts even decisions that nullify the laws a majority of the electorate or their representatives voted for.
It may not be amiss, here, Gentlemen, to remind you of the good old rule, that on questions of fact, it is the province of the jury, on questions of law, it is the province of the court to decide. But it must be observed that by that same law, which recognizes this reasonable distribution […]
As a witness in court, it is wrong to say what is untrue or what gives the wrong idea. It is wrong not to tell in court what you only heard from others, even if it was told you by someone you trust. Tell in court only what you yourself heard and saw.
They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care; They pursued it with forks and hope; They threatened its life with a railway-share; They charmed it with smiles and soap. But the Barrister, weary of proving in vain That the Beaver’s lace-making was wrong, Fell asleep, and in dreams saw the creature quite plain […]
