As quoted by William J Brennan Jr, Associate Justice, US Supreme Court, NY Times (October 6, 1963); and later in "The Role of the Court — The Challenge of the Future" in An Affair with Freedom (1967).
Extra-judicial writings
Context: The judge's authority depends upon the assumption that he speaks with the mouth of others. That is to say, the momentum of his utterances must be greater than any which his personal reputation and character can command, if it is to do the work assigned to it — if it is to stand against the passionate resentments arising out of the interests he must frustrate — for while a judge must discover some composition with the dominant trends of his times, he must preserve his authority by cloaking himself in the majesty of an overshadowing past.
“The author must keep his mouth shut when his work starts to speak.”
1960s, Freedom From The Known (1969)
Context: You cannot depend upon anybody. There is no guide, no teacher, no authority. There is only you — your relationship with others and with the world — there is nothing else. When you realize this, it either brings great despair, from which comes cynicism and bitterness, or, in facing the fact that you and nobody else is responsible for the world and for yourself, for what you think, what you feel, how you act, all self-pity goes. Normally we thrive on blaming others, which is a form of self-pity.
1880s, Plea for Free Speech in Boston (1880)
“He who has an opinion of his own, but depends upon the opinion and taste of others, is a slave.”
As quoted in Day's Collacon: an Encyclopaedia of Prose Quotations (1884), p. 639
“Whatever doubts I had, I submit to the authority of the other Judges.”
Mitchell v. Cockburne (1794), 2 H. B. 382.
in La formation scientifique, Une communication du Prix Nobel d’économie, Maurice Allais http://www.canalacademie.com/Maurice-Allais-la-formation.html, address to the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques (1997).
Context: Any author who uses mathematics should always express in ordinary language the meaning of the assumptions he admits, as well as the significance of the results obtained. The more abstract his theory, the more imperative this obligation.
In fact, mathematics are and can only be a tool to explore reality. In this exploration, mathematics do not constitute an end in itself, they are and can only be a means.
Existentialism Is a Humanism, lecture http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm (1946)
Context: We will freedom for freedom’s sake, in and through particular circumstances. And in thus willing freedom, we discover that it depends entirely upon the freedom of others and that the freedom of others depends upon our own. Obviously, freedom as the definition of a man does not depend upon others, but as soon as there is a commitment, I am obliged to will the liberty of others at the same time as my own. I cannot make liberty my aim unless I make that of others equally my aim.
“God's mouth knows not how to speak falsehood, but he brings to pass every word.”
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 1032–1033
