“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.”

The Supreme Court, vol. 3, no. 1, Parliamentary Affairs (London, Winter 1949).
Other writings

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Felix Frankfurter67

American judge 1882–1965

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“[I]f…a society adopts a constitution and incorporates in that constitution safeguards of individual liberty, these safeguards do indeed take on a general moral rightness or goodness. They assume a general social acceptance neither because of any intrinsic worth nor because of any unique origins in someone's idea of natural justice but instead simply because they have been incorporated in a constitution by the people.”

William H. Rehnquist (1924–2005) Chief Justice of the United States

The Notion of a Living Constitution https://web.archive.org/web/20071031034406/http://www.claremont.org/publications/precepts/id.169/precept_detail.asp.

“Words, especially those of a constitution, are not to be read with such stultifying narrowness.”

Harlan F. Stone (1872–1946) United States federal judge

United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, 316 (1941).

“We current justices read the Constitution in the only way that we can: as 20th-century Americans”

William J. Brennan (1906–1997) American judge

Speech to the Text and Teaching Symposium at Georgetown University (October 12, 1985).
Context: The framers discerned fundamental principles.... But our acceptance of the fundamental principles has not and should not bind us to those precise, at times anachronistic, contours. We current justices read the Constitution in the only way that we can: as 20th-century Americans... The ultimate question must be, what do the words of the text mean in our time? For the genius of the Constitution rests not in any static meaning it might have had in a world that is dead and gone, but in the adaptability of its great principles to cope with current problems and current needs. What the constitutional fundamentals meant to the wisdom of other times cannot be their measure to the vision of our time. Similarly, what those fundamentals mean for us, our descendants will learn, cannot be their measure to the vision of their time.

“Now, the truth of the matter is that the idea of the meaning of the word 'federal' underwent a change from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution. Under the Constitution, the states gave up their sovereignty in the Calhounian sense. And if you have any doubt about that, let me just read a sentence from George Washington. 'It is obviously impracticable in the federal government of these states to secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each, and yet provide for the interest and safety of all.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

So all the rights of independent sovereignty, or some of those rights, have been surrendered.
2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), Rebuttal

“I do not believe that the meaning of the Constitution was forever “fixed” at the Philadelphia Convention. Nor do I find the wisdom, foresight, and sense of justice exhibited by the Framers particularly profound. To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today. When contemporary Americans cite “The Constitution,” they invoke a concept that is vastly different from what the Framers barely began to construct two centuries ago.”

Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993) Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court

ThurgoodMarshall.com, Speeches. Constitutional Speech http://www.thurgoodmarshall.com/speeches/constitutional_speech.htm (May 6, 1987)

“If the right to privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted government intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or begat a child.”

William J. Brennan (1906–1997) American judge

Writing for the court, Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972).

“The Alaska Constitution is my bible in governing. I try to keep it so simple by reading the thing and believing in it and living it. It's providential. Some of the crafters of the Constitution are still alive. They're my mentors, my advisers. I get to meet with these folks and ask, "What did you mean by this?" And it makes so much sense.”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

Interview http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/vassilaros/s_585718.html by Dimitri Vassilaros for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, conducted <br class="br">2008

“If in Nietzsche’s thinking the prior tradition of Western thought is gathered and completed in a decisive respect, then the confrontation with Nietzsche becomes one with all Western thought hitherto.”

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher

Source: Nietzsche (1961), p. 4

“The true antidote to racism is liberty. Liberty means having a limited, constitutional government devoted to the protection of individual rights rather than group claims. Liberty means free-market capitalism, which rewards individual achievement and competence, not skin color, gender, or ethnicity.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

As quoted in "Government and Racism" http://archive.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul381.html (18 April 2007). <br class="br">2000s, 2006-2009

“I am so constituted that I had rather read bad stuff than nothing.”

Burton Rascoe (1892–1957) American writer

As quoted in the dedication to The Pumpkin Coach (1935) by Louis Paul

“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.”

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Felix Frankfurter67

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