Quotes about judge
page 17

“Don't wanna judge nobody — don't wanna be judged.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Slow Train Coming (1979), Do Right to Me Baby

“On ‘Shrek’ we didn't try to figure out how to make adolescents laugh. You have to use yourself as the best judge and use your own instincts. We figured if we laughed at it, chances are good someone else would too.”

Vicky Jenson (1960) American animator

Quoted by Hillary Atkin in " Vicky Jenson: Filmmaker http://variety.com/2001/biz/news/vicky-jenson-1117855807/", Variety (November 14, 2001).

Chance

“What right had I to value her less than the bodies in the square? Suffering is not increased by numbers; one body can contain all the suffering the world can feel. I had judged like a journalist, in terms of quantity, and I had betrayed my own principles; I had become as engage as Pyle, and it seemed to me that no decision would ever be simple again.”

Graham Greene book The Quiet American

Pt. IV, ch. 2, pg 242
The Quiet American (1955)

World, Feeling, Decision, Suffering

“I saw that everything famous and beautiful in the world, if we judge by the descriptions and drawings of writers and artists, always loses when we go to see it and examine it closely.”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

History of My Life (trans. Trask 1967), 1997 reprint, vol. 11, chap. 4, p. 112

World, Beauty, Drawing

“Back and forth the fantastic tableaux would spin, past his cruel plebe hazing, the self-discovery at the West Texas Military Academy, the patriarchal Judge MacArthur, all beard and cigar smoke, presiding over dynastic feats at Washington's 1201 N Street; the chimes of the drawing-room clock there telling off the quarters; the ceremonial changing of the guard at Leavenworth; his father's tales of Sherman's dauntless Boys in Blue; his mother's imperious commands to fight and fight and never lower his blade short of victory; the clean crack of Krag rifles and the warm prickling of desert sand as he played with his brother outside the fort stockade; the rumbling of the sunset gun and Pinky's face tilting downward, her lambent smile gilding the child's upturned features while he clutched at her cascading skirts; the yellow notes of the bugles as he stirred in his cradle; the chant of sergeants hawking cadence on the parade ground outside; and, snapping proudly in the overarching sky above him, the flag, and the flag, and the flag.”

William Manchester (1922–2004) (April 1, 1922 – June 1, 2004) American author, journalist and historian

Source: American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964 (1978), p. 709

Smile, Boy, Change, Past

“O Time! whose verdicts mock our own,
The only righteous judge art thou!”

Thomas William Parsons (1819–1892) American writer

Art, Time

“The wide experience to be gained at the Scots Bar has its advantages. It does not enable one to become such an expert in any single department as the English specialist… but it tends to a sound knowledge of the legal principles common to all branches of the law. The Scottish Judges have always been more interested in principle than in precedent and the Bar have conformed to this lead. In the House of Lords this feature of Scottish advocacy has been often remarked and admired.”

Hugh Macmillan, Baron Macmillan (1873–1952) British judge

Source: A Man of Law's Tale (1952), At the Scottish bar, p. 48

Law, Knowledge, Housing

“When I stand before the throne of God, I shall be judged innocent.”

Klaus Barbie (1913–1991) SS-Hauptsturmführer, soldier and Gestapo member

Statement at His Trial

God

“Judging others by themselves, the English, who are blinded by their loyalty, have always thought that the Germans did not abide by their pledges inscribed in the Versailles Treaty because they had not frankly agreed to them… We, on the contrary, believe that if Germany, far from making the slightest effort to carry out the treaty of peace, has always tried to escape her obligations, it is because until now she has not been convinced of her defeat… We are also certain that Germany, as a nation, resigns herself to keep her pledged word only under the impact of necessity.”

Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934) 10th President of the French Republic

Letter to Charles de Saint-Aulaire, French ambassador to Britain (c. December 1922), quoted in Leopold Schwarzschild, World in Trance (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1943), p. 140.

Peace, Effort, Loyalty

“It is the office of Judges to advance laws made for religion, according to their end, though the words be short and imperfect.”

Sir Henry Hobart, 1st Baronet (1554–1625) English politician

Colt v. Glover (1614), Lord Hobart's Rep. 157.

Religion, Law

“Western observers focus more on the regime's economic failures than the North Koreans themselves do. Remember that it was only in recent modern times that Western societies began expecting the state to secure constant economic growth and rising prosperity. Well into the 20th century people expected little more from the state than that it protect them from foreign powers, and expand the influence or territory of the nation. Prussia was remarkably like North Korea in many ways, yet we remember it as a very successful state. If we judge North Korea by its own standards — instead of by the communist standards we hope its people judge it by — we must admit it has performed very well.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Interview with Joshua Stanton (August 2017)

People, Hope, Way, Failure

“There were sometimes in our own ranks comrades who thought themselves cleverer and more capable of judging various questions than was done in the definite decisions of our World Party. Here I stress with the greatest emphasis: our relations with the Comintern, this close, indestructible, firm confidence between the C. P. G. and the C. I. and its Executive—this is one of our Party, the inner-political struggles and disputes in the past and of the higher political maturity of our Party generally.”

Ernst Thälmann (1886–1944) leader of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) during much of the Weimar Republic

Ernst Thälmann in address to the KPD Party on the October Conference, 1932; as cited in: Wilhelm Pieck. " Ernst Thaelmann, Fifty Years Old https://www.marxists.org/archive/pieck/1936/07/thaelmann.htm," The Communist Review, Vol. 3, No. 7, July 1936, pp. 12-17.

World, Confidence, Question, Decision

“I believe that painter's judgments of painting are first ethical, then aesthetic, the aesthetic judgments flowing from an ethical context. Doubtless no painter systematically thinks this way; but it does seem to me to be basically what happens when modern painters judge any new manifestations of painting... An artist's 'art' is just his consciousness, developed slowly and painstakingly with many mistakes en route. How dare they collect those ugly early Van Gogh's like trophies…”

Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) American artist

Source: 1950s, The painter and the audience' (1954), pp. 109-110

Art, Way, Thinking, Painting

“I remember an old proverb. It says that youth thinks itself wise just as drunk men think themselves sober. Youth is not wise! Youth knows nothing about life! Youth knows nothing about anything except for massive cliches which for the most part through the media of pop songs are just foisted on them by middle-age entrepreneurs and exploiters who should know better. When we start thinking that pop music is close to God, then we'll think pop music is aesthetically better than it is. And it's only the aesthetic value of pop music that we're really concerned. I mean the only way we can judge Wagner or Beethoven or any other composer is aesthetically. We don't regard Wagner or Beethoven nor Shakespeare or Milton as great teachers. When we start claiming for Lennon or McCartney or Maharishi or any other of these pop prophets the ability to transport us to a region where God becomes manifest then I see red. We're satisfied with our little long playing record, ten pop numbers or thereabouts a side. This is great art, we've been told this by the great pundits of our age. And in consequence why should we bother to learn? There's nothing more delightful than to be told: "You don't have to learn, my boy. There's nothing in it. Modern art? There's nothing in it." When you're told these things you sit down with a sigh of relief: "Thank God I don't have to learn, I don't have to travel, I don't have to exert myself in the slightest. I am what I am. Youth is youth. Pop is pop. There's no need to progress. There's no need to do anything. Let us sit down, smoke our marijuana (an admirable thing in itself but not the end of anything), let us listen to our records and life has become a single moment. And the single moment is eternity. We're with God. Finis!”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Pop Music

Life, Men, God, Youth

“Andrew Holland was prosecuted in the UK for possessing "extreme pornography", a term which appears to mean porn that judges and prosecutors consider shocking. He had received a video showing a tiger having sex with a woman, or at least apparently so.
He was found innocent because the video he received was a joke. I am glad he was not punished, but this law is nonetheless a threat to other people. If Mr Holland had had a serious video depicting a tiger having sex with a woman, he still would not deserve to go to prison. … I've read that male dolphins try to have sex with humans, and female apes solicit sex from humans. What is wrong with giving them what they want, if that's what turns you on, or even just to gratify them?
But this law is not concerned with protecting animals, since it does not care whether the animal really had sex, or really existed at all. It only panders to the prejudice of censors.
A parrot once had sex with me. I did not recognize the act as sex until it was explained to me afterward, but being stroked on the hand by his soft belly feathers was so pleasurable that I yearn for another chance. I have a photo of that act; should I go to prison for it?
Perhaps I am spared because this photo isn't "disgusting", but "disgusting" is a subjective matter; we must not imprison people merely because someone feels disgusted. I find the sight of wounds disgusting; fortunately surgeons do not. Maybe there is someone who considers it disgusting for a parrot to have sex with a human. Or for a dolphin or tiger to have sex with a human. So what? Others feel that all sex is disgusting. There are prejudiced people that want to ban all depiction of sex, and force all women to cover their faces. This law and the laws they want are the same in spirit.
Threatening people with death or injury is a very bad thing, but violence is no less bad for being nonsexual. Is it worse to shoot someone while stroking that person's genitals than to shoot someone from a few feet away? If I were going to be the victim, and I were invited to choose one or the other, I would choose whichever one gave me the best chance to escape.
Images of violence can be painful to see, but they are no better for being nonsexual. I saw images of gruesome bodily harm in the movie Pulp Fiction. I do not want to see anything like that again, sex or no sex. That is no reason to censor these works, and would still not be a reason even if most people reacted to them as I do.
Since the law doesn't care whether a real human was really threatened with harm, it is not really concerned about our safety from violence, any more than it is concerned with avoiding suffering for corpses or animals. It is only prejudice, taking a form that can ruin people's lives.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

"Extreme Pornography Law in the UK" (2010) http://stallman.org/articles/extreme.html <br class="br">2010s

Death, Women, Pain, People

“Ignoring the restrictions which the United States imposed upon itself in conducting the war in Indochina, some observers have seen in the outcome some special military genius on the side of North Vietnam. They have in large measure attributed that alleged genius to my apparent counterpart, Vo Nyugen Giap. In reality, Giap was hardly my counterpart, for my position was never so exalted as Giap's. While he was apparently an influential member of his country's government, I was a field commander restricted to decisions and actions within the boundaries of South Vietnam, subject to the dictates of my country's government, and influential in policy matters only to the extent that Washington chose to act on my recommendations. Yet since Giap was for long his own field commander, there was enough direct confrontation between the two of us to enable me to some degree to analyze and judge his military performance.”

William Westmoreland book A Soldier Reports

Source: A Soldier Reports (1976), p. 404.

War, Reality, Decision, Country

“We like to picture to ourselves the field of law as accurately mapped and plotted. We draw our little lines, and they are hardly down before we blur them. As in time and space, so here. Divisions are working hypotheses, adopted for convenience. … So also the duty of a judge becomes itself a question of degree, and he is a useful judge or a poor one as he estimates the measure accurately or loosely. He must balance all his ingredients, his philosophy, his logic, his analogies, his history, his customs, his sense of right, and all the rest, and adding a little here and taking out a little there, must determine, as wisely as he can, which weight shall tip the scales.”

Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870–1938) United States federal judge

Page 161
Other writings, The Nature of the Judicial Process (1921)

Law, History, Question, Sense

“I appeared frequently in the courts – state and federal – for hearings and trials. Initially, I received routine compliments from judges – and grudgingly from defense attorneys – on my legal comprehension and ability. This all changed when I persisted in efforts to have the courts comply with the laws. I refused to accept the unwritten rule that certain issues are not to be challenged or exposed. My efforts were calculated to bring the courts to bear on DOC officials at the highest levels, to force them to change the conditions under which we lived, and conform them to basic requirements of the written laws. The courts had other plans. The state courts were not willing to grant these sorts of relief, although the letter of the law required it. They attempted instead, numerous times, to grant my release from prison.”

Kevin Rashid Johnson (1971) American prisoner and social activist

Defying the Tomb: Selected Prison Writings and Art of Kevin Rashid Johnson (2010)

Law, Effort, Appearance, Change

“Because these two judges showed to their generation of justices, and the generation after that, as to how to approach cases that came before the highest court. It is because judges with a political or social agenda are so few in number that they are long remembered. I have always considered it significant and beneficial for the development of the law in India that judges-without-an-agenda have been the more numerous.”

Fali Sam Nariman (1929) Indian politician

On the role of judges
Fali Sam Nariman: An Interview

Justice, Law

“We are not to issue process here as instruments or conduit-pipes, but judicially as Judges: and it will not be an objection to say, that we may award process at all hazards, and let the party grieved come after and plead to it; for we shall never grant an ill-writ, that the party may avoid it in pleading.”

John Holt (Lord Chief Justice) (1642–1710) English lawyer and Lord Chief Justice of England

Lucy v. Bishop of St. David's (1702), 7 Mod. 59.

“It is often sadly remarked that the bad economists present their errors to the public better than the good economists present their truths. It is often complained that demagogues can be more plausible in putting forward economic nonsense from the platform than the honest men who try to show what is wrong with it. But the basic reason for this ought not to be mysterious. The reason is that the demagogues and bad economists are presenting half-truths. They are speaking only of the immediate effect of a proposed policy or its effect upon a single group. As far as they go they may often be right. In these cases the answer consists in showing that the proposed policy would also have longer and less desirable effects, or that it could benefit one group only at the expense of all other groups. The answer consists in supplementing and correcting the half-truth with the other half. But to consider all the chief effects of a proposed course on everybody often requires a long, complicated, and dull chain of reasoning. Most of the audience finds this chain of reasoning difficult to follow and soon becomes bored and inattentive. The bad economists rationalize this intellectual debility and laziness by assuring the audience that it need not even attempt to follow the reasoning or judge it on its merits because it is only “classicism” or “laissez-faire,” or “capitalist apologetics” or whatever other term of abuse may happen to strike them as effective.”

Henry Hazlitt book Economics in One Lesson

Economics in One Lesson (1946), The Lesson (ch. 1)

Men, Truth, Error

“Judge thyself with the judgment of sincerity, and thou wilt judge others with the judgment of charity.”

John M. Mason (1770–1829) American Doctor of Divinity

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, P. 554.

Sincerity

“We must be careful to discriminate between our own incapacity to test truth and the necessary improbability of an event. It is plain that from our ignorance of the remote spheres of God's action we cannot judge of His works removed from our experience; but a fact is not necessarily doubtful because it cannot be reached by our ordinary senses. To recapitulate, we may lay down the following propositions:
1. That there is no real physical distinction between miracles and any other operations of the Divine energy : that we regard them differently is because we are familiar with one order of events and not the other.
2. There is nothing incredible in a miracle, and the credibility of a miraculous event is to be measured only by the evidence which sustains it. And although the extraordinary character of a phenomenon may render the event itself improbable, it does not, therefore, necessarily render it either incredible or untrue.”

Charles Babbage Passages from the life of a philosopher

"Passages from the life of a philosopher", Appendix, p. 489
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864)

God, Truth, Sense

“Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences; for there is no worse torture than the torture of laws. Specially in case of laws penal, they ought to have care that that which was meant for terror be not tuned into rigour; and that they bring not upon the people that shower whereof the Scripture speaketh, Pluet super eos laqueos: for penal laws pressed are a shower of snares upon the people.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Of Judicature
Essays (1625)

People, Law

“My conclusion is that contrary to popular belief, atheism is not primarily an intellectual revolt, it is a moral revolt. Atheists don't find God invisible so much as objectionable. They aren't adjusting their desires to the truth, but rather the truth to fit their desires. […] This is the perennial appeal of atheism: it gets rid of the stern fellow with the long beard and liberates us for the pleasures of sin and depravity. The atheist seeks to get rid of moral judgment by getting rid of the judge.”

Dinesh D'Souza (1961) Indian-American political commentator, filmmaker, author

Source: Books, What's So Great about Christianity (2007), Ch. 23

God, Pleasure, Truth

“Is the intellect to be regarded as autonomous and self-sufficient, as pursuing ends of its own, and as judging by standards of its own? or is it to be regarded as the servant of alien interests which impose their ends and standards upon it? The modern tendency has been towards the latter or practical interpretation of the knowing faculties.”

Ralph Barton Perry (1876–1957) American philosopher

The Integrity of the Intellect (July 1920)

“I judge property myself by its net earning power; that is the only rule I have been able to get.… This whole island [Manhattan] was once bought for a few strings of beads. But now you will find this property valued by its earning power, by its rent power, and that is the way to value a railroad or telegraph.”

Jay Gould (1836–1892) American businessman

Testimony to the New York Senate Committee on Labor and Education
Jay Gould : A Character Sketch (1893)

Way

“The earliest achievement of this (of equality and the restriction on the powers of the constitutionally mandated magistrates), the most ancient opposition in Rome, consisted in the abolition of the life-tenure of the presidency of the community; in other words, in the abolition of the monarchy… Not only in Rome (but all over the Italian peninsula) … we find the rulers for life of an earlier epoch superseded in after times by annual magistrates. In this light the reasons which led to the substitution of the consuls for kings in Rome need no explanation. The organism of the ancient Greek and Italian polity through its own action and by a sort of natural necessity produced the limitation of the life-presidency to a shortened, and for the most part an annual, term… Simple, however, as was the cause of the change, it might be brought about in various ways, resolution (of the community),.. or the rule might voluntarily abdicate; or the people might rise in rebellion against a tyrannical ruler, and expel him. It was in this latter way that the monarchy was terminated in Rome. For however much the history of the expulsion of the last Tarquinius, "the proud", may have been interwoven with anecdotes and spun out into a romance, it is not in its leading outlines to be called in question. Tradition credibly enough indicates as the causes of the revolt, that the king neglected to consult the senate and to complete its numbers; that he pronounced sentences of capital punishment and confiscation without advising with his counsellors(sic); that he accumulated immense stores of grain in his granaries, and exacted from the burgesses military labours and task-work beyond what was due… we are (in light of the ignorance of historical facts around the abolition of the monarchy) fortunately in possession of a clearer light as to the nature of the change which was made in the constitution (after the expulsion of the monarchy). The royal power was by no means abolished, as is shown by the fact that, when a vacancy occurred, a "temporary king" (Interrex) was nominated as before. The one life-king was simply replaced by two [one year] kings, who called themselves generals (praetores), or judges…, or merely colleagues (Consuls) [literally, "Those who leap or dance together"]. The collegiate principle, from which this last - and subsequently most current - name of the annual kings was derived, assumed in their case an altogether peculiar form. The supreme power was not entrusted to the two magistrates conjointly, but each consul possessed and exercised it for himself as fully and wholly as it had been possessed and exercised by the king; and, although a partition of functions doubtless took place from the first - the one consul for instance undertaking the command of the army, and the other the administration of justice - that partition was by no means binding, and each of the colleagues was legally at liberty to interfere at any time in the province of the other.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 1, Book II , Chapter 1. "Change of the Constitution" Translated by W.P. Dickson
The History of Rome - Volume 1

Life, People, Justice, Way

“Ach! I know. If I were to play the Pathetique or the Moonlight Sonata for the high judges, they would let me off. But my defense unfortunately will not be musical.”

Walther Funk (1890–1960) German economist and politician

To Leon Goldensohn, March 31, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004 - Page 82

Music

“You judge a society by how it treats its citizens. We must do our best to ensure that every child can live in comfort and security, with the best possible education.”

Melania Trump (1970) Slovenian model, wife of Donald Trump and First Lady of the United States

Speech at 2016 Republican National Convention http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-republican-convention-2016-live-melania-trump-speech-is-the-wrong-1468897600-htmlstory.html (July 18, 2016)

Education

“That evening I lit many candles and sat in the library wearing fresh linen and drinking good wine while I read a treatise on astronomy by a student of Kepler’s and reflected on my increasing disagreement with Luther, who had judged reason to be the chief enemy of Faith, of the purity of his beliefs. He had considered reason a harlot, willing to turn to anyone’s needs, but this merely displayed his own suspicion of logic. I have come to believe him the madman Catholics described him as. Most mad people see logic as a threat to the dream in which they would rather live, a threat to their attempts to make the dream reality (usually through force, through threat, through manipulation and through bloodshed). It is why men of reason are so often the first to be killed or exiled by tyrants.”

Michael Moorcock book The War Hound and the World's Pain

Source: The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 1 (pp. 11-12)

Men, People, Faith, Dreams

“The moment juries or judges go beyond their functions, and take upon themselves to lay down the law or find the facts, not according to the law as it is, but according to the law as they think it ought to be, then the certainty of the law is at an end; there is nothing to rely upon; we are left to the infinite variety and uncertainty of human opinion; to caprice which may at any moment influence the best of us, to feelings and prejudices, perhaps excellent in themselves, but which may distort or disturb our judgment, and distract our minds from the single simple operation of ascertaining whether the facts proved bring the case within the law as we are bound to take it.”

John Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge (1820–1894) British lawyer, judge and Liberal politician

1 Cababe & Ellis' Q. B. D. Rep. 134.
Reg. v. Ramsey (1883)

Law, Feeling, Thinking

“President Chavez, from here, on behalf of our people, I thank you for the good you may have done (…) and the bad and you have failed to do, the history will judge you.”

Henrique Capriles Radonski (1972) Venezuelan politician and lawyer an thot THICC

Capriles Radonski send a message to Chavez http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-politica/121004/capriles-to-chavez-you-will-not-stop-the-advance-of-the-people (4 October 2012).

People, History

“He who made all men hath made the truths necessary to human happiness obvious to all.
Our forefathers threw off the yoke of Popery in religion; for you is reserved the honor of leveling the popery of politics. They opened the Bible to all, and maintained the capacity of every man to judge for himself in religion.”

Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher

Speech in Philadelphia (1776)

Men, Happiness, Truth, Religion

“"Science worships skepticism," I wrote, "unless skepticism is applied to science, its hypotheses, procedures, or methods. What we need are more skeptics who are not afraid to judge the claims of science with the same fine discrimination used to examine other alternate disciplines and fields of endeavor. Like The New York Times, science publishes 'all the news that's fit to print,' meaning all of the news that fits into the officially accepted view of reality. That news is already censored, and yet we're supposed to live our lives in accordance with that official definition of experience.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto (1981), p. 129

Reality, Science, Time

“Judging itself brings the pain of being judged. The wicked judge mistakes this for another crime of the accused and lengthens his sentence.”

James Richardson (1950) American poet

#441
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

Pain

“In like manner the Reverend Dr. William A. Smith, President of the Randolph-Macon College in Virginia, in his work upon the Philosophy and Practice of Slavery, deliberately repudiates Mr. Jefferson's view of slavery as a 'grossly offensive error', and attributes the anti-slavery movement to him – which is as wise as to attribute the motion of the earth to Galileo. Judge Wayne, in his late charge at Savannah upon the law against the slave-trade, confirms Mr. Stephens's statement. And, as if to establish it by the most unexpected testimony, Mr. Edward Everett, in his late discourse upon Daniel Webster, said, 'In common with all, or nearly all, the statesmen of the last generation, he believed that free labor would ultimately prevail throughout the continent.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Law, Error

“If in the Day of His manifestation a king were to make mention of his own sovereignty, this would be like unto a mirror challenging the sun, saying: ‘The light is in me’. It would be likewise, if a man of learning in His Day were to claim to be an exponent of knowledge, or if he who is possessed of riches were to display his affluence, or if a man wielding power were to assert his own authority, or if one invested with grandeur were to show forth his glory. Nay, such men would become the object of the derision of their peers, and how would they be judged by Him Who is the Sun of Truth!”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

III, 12
The Persian Bayán

Men, Truth, Knowledge, Light

“The art of politics is judging what circumstances permit and what they forbid. Look at the reputation of, say, John Brown and the abolitionists before the Civil War. Lincoln had very harsh things to say about John Brown in 1859. The Civil War vindicated John Brown.”

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

2010s, Interview with Eric Benson (2012)

War, Art

“It is not fair to criticise every line and letter of a summing-up which has been delivered by a Judge in trying a case, especially when there is a somewhat imperfect record of it.”

William Wood, 1st Baron Hatherley (1801–1881) Lord Chancellor of Great Britain

Prudential Assurance Co. v. Edmonds (1877), L. R. 2 App. Ca. 494.

“Dear Sir, - I have truly, I must say, written three times, and now hesitate; for did I know your son's works, or, as you say, his gifted merits yet even then I would rather advise you to think well, and not be carried away by the admiration which any friendly hopes (which ardent friends to early talent) may assume: they know not the difficulties or the necessities of the culture of the Fine Arts generally speaking. In regard to yourself, it is you alone can judge how far you are inclined to support him during perhaps a long period of expense; and particularly if you look towards tuition, the more so; for it cannot insure success (however much it may facilitate practice), and therefore it behooves you to weigh well the means in your power before you embark in a profession which requires more care, assiduity, and perseverance than any person can guarantee.”

J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851) British Romantic landscape painter, water-colourist, and printmaker

Quote from Turner's letter 4 Dec. 1848 to James Astbury Hammersley; as cited in The life of J.M.W. Turner, Volume II, George Walter Thornbury; Hurst and Blackett Publishers, London, 1862, pp. 115-16
James Astbury Hammersley, himself an artist and art-teacher, wrote Turner to ask him to give his son further instructions in painting
1821 - 1851

Hope, Art, Support, Thinking

“All judges had rather that ten innocent should suffer than that one guilty should escape.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Victor Frankenstein of Justine Moritz in Ch. 8
Frankenstein (1818)

Suffering

“Knowing that religion does not furnish grosser bigots than law, I expect little from old judges.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Thomas Cooper (1810)
1810s

Religion, Law

“I have been reminded that I sit here as counsel for the defendant. I certainly do so, so far as to interpose between him and the counsel for the prosecution, and to see that no improper use of the law is made against him, and that no improper evidence is given to the jury: but the Judge has another task to perform, which is that of assisting the jury in the administration of justice.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron

Wakefield's Case (1799), 27 How. St. Tr. 736.

Justice, Law

“Modern society is too quick to judge people on their appearances. There is not much you can do about it; it is the way they think; it is the way they are. But maybe this could teach them a lesson, or set an example.”

Susan Boyle (1961) British singer

As quoted in "Susan Boyle redeems us from superficiality" by Melanie Reid in TImes Online (18 April 2009) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/melanie_reid/article6115397.ece

People, Way, Thinking, Appearance

“To fool a judge, feign fascination, but to bamboozle the whole court, feign boredom.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing", p. 41 (Nook Edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

Fools

“Fidelity to the Constitution and the law has been the cornerstone of my professional life, and it’s the hallmark of the kind of judge I have tried to be for the past 18 years. If the Senate sees fit to confirm me to the position for which I have been nominated today, I promise to continue on that course.”

Merrick Garland (1952) American judge

[Remarks by the President Announcing Judge Merrick Garland as his Nominee to the Supreme Court, Merrick, Garland, w:Merrick Garland, The White House, March 16, 2016, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Remarks_by_the_President_Announcing_Judge_Merrick_Garland_as_his_Nominee_to_the_Supreme_Court#Remarks_by_Judge_Garland]; quote then excerpted in:
[March 18, 2016, http://variety.com/2016/biz/news/obama-merrick-garland-supreme-court-1201731565/, Variety, President Obama Nominates Judge Merrick Garland for Supreme Court, Ted Johnson, March 16, 2016]; and also excerpted in:
[March 18, 2016, The Texas Tribune, http://www.texastribune.org/2016/03/16/president-nominates-merrick-garland-supreme-court/, March 16, 2016, In Texas, Obama's Nominee May Draw Attention for EPA Rulings, Jordan Rudner]; and quote also excerpted in source:
[March 18, 2016, http://time.com/4261007/merrick-garland-supreme-court-barack-obama/, Time, President Obama Nominates Merrick Garland for Supreme Court, March 16, 2016, Katie Reilly and Maya Rhodan]
Remarks by Judge Garland upon nomination to Supreme Court of the United States (2016)

Life, Law, Past

“Somehow to them, the press was always the judge of things scientific.”

Gregory Benford book Timescape

Source: Timescape (1980), Chapter 17 (p. 236, concerning cranks)

“It is true that Judges, as the upholders of the Constitution and the laws, are least likely to err but the possibility of their acting contrary to the Constitution cannot be completely excluded.”

Mohammad Hidayatullah (1905–1992) 11th Chief Justice of India

Full Court Reference in Memory of The Late Justice M. Hidayatullah

Law

“There was a plea from honourable Members relating to the need for formal Gross National Product figures. Such figures are very inexact even in the most sophisticated countries I think they do not have a great deal of meaning, even as a basis of comparison between economies. That other countries make use of them is not, I think, necessarily a good reason to suppose that we need them. But, although I am not entirely clear what practical purpose they would serve in Hong Kong, I am sure they would be of interest. I suspect myself, however, that the need arises in other countries because high taxation and more or less detailed Government intervention in the economy have made it essential to be able to judge (or to hope to be able to judge) the effect of policies, and of changes in policies, on the economy. One of the honourable Members who spoke on this subject, said outright, as a confirmed planner, that he thought that they were desirable for the planning of our future economic policy. But we are in the happy position, happier at least for the Financial Secretary where the leverage exercised by Government on the economy is so small that it is not necessary, nor even of any particular value, to have these figures available for the formulation of policy. We might indeed be right to be apprehensive lest the availability of such figures might lead, by a reversal of cause and effect, to policies designed to have a direct effect on the economy. I would myself deplore this.”

John James Cowperthwaite (1915–2006) British colonial administrator

March 25, 1970, page 495.
Official Report of Proceedings of the Hong Kong Legislative Council

Happiness, Hope, Exercises, Thinking

“No art can be judged by purely aesthetic standards, although a painting or a piece of music may appear to give a purely aesthetic pleasure. Aesthetic enjoyment is an intensification of the vital response, and this response forms the basis of all value judgements. The existentialist contends that all values are connected with the problems of human existence, the stature of man, the purpose of life. These values are inherent in all works of art, in addition to their aesthetic values, and are closely connected with them.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

The Chicago Review (Volume 13, no. 2, 1959, p. 152-181)

Life, Pleasure, Art, Music

“This again, led judges and lawyers to insist on the importance of possession, or seisin, as evidence and presumptions of title, and thus to give to the seisin of land that unique importance in English land law which it has ever been held.”

Edward Jenks (1861–1939) British legal scholar

Source: A Short History Of The English Law (First Edition) (1912), Chapter IV, Improved Legal Procedure, p. 50

Law

“Wise men don't judge: they seek to understand.”

Wei Wu Wei (1895–1986) writer

Fingers Pointing Towards The Moon (1958)

Men, Understanding

“Today the percentage of female judges, college professors and detectives seen on television is a pretty good reflection of the actual world. (In the case of judges, I wouldn't be shocked to find out the number on television exceeds the number in real life — what is it about those black robes that makes us think ovaries?)
But merely thrusting more women into more prestigious on-screen jobs doesn't necessarily make the working world a better place for women. If you were to show people images of two real-life professionals, one a man, one a woman, and ask them to rate their competence knowing nothing but job and gender — I bet people still give the guys the edge.
It's not television's fault, exactly. But television can help fix the problem. Not by writing women into better professions, but by more accurately showing them as complex people contending with the sort of snide, generous, ambitious, incompetent, sad and hilarious co-workers who populate real workplaces.”

Jane Espenson (1964) American television writer and producer

How to Succeed at Vampire Slaying and Keep Your Soul (2005)

Life, Women, People, World

“The liberal conceives of men as imperfect beings. He regards the problem of social organization to be as much a negative problem of preventing 'bad' people from doing harm as of enabling 'good' people to do good; and, of course, 'bad' and 'good' people may be the same people, depending on who is judging them.”

Milton Friedman book Capitalism and Freedom

Source: Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, p. 12

Men, People, Problem, Dependency

“Judges who find Constitutional rights the Framers never intended take important issues out of the public space of democratic debate and suspend them in a sort of legal formaldehyde.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Speech at University of Vermont, 8 October 2004 http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmpr/?Page=article.php&id=1389 <br class="br">2000s

“The world at large does not judge us by who we are and what we know; it judges us by what we have.”

Joyce Brothers (1927–2013) Joyce Brothers

As quoted in On Being Blonde: Wit and Wisdom from the World's Most Infamous Blondes (2004) by Paula Munier, p. 70

World

“This age of globalisation is marked by the adoption of universal principles governing such matters as democracy, human rights, trade and development. Today, I reaffirm here that Fiji accepts these precepts. But we also say that countries like ours should not be held to unrealistic standards, we need time to evolve to adapt and to adhere. Do not judge us by what might be inappropriate at our stage of development.”

Laisenia Qarase (1941) Prime Minister of Fiji

Address to the United Nations General Assembly, 17 September 2005 (excerpts)

Age, Democracy, Universe, Time

“In judging policies we should consider the results that have been achieved through them rather than the means by which they have been executed.”

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Italian politician, Writer and Author

From an undated letter to Piero Soderini (translated here by Dr. Arthur Livingston), in The Living Thoughts of Machiavelli, by Count Carlo Sforza, published by Cassell, London (1942), p. 85

“The system wasn't working, and I thought it was time to err on the side of a new model. What might work, I thought, was a system that promoted personal accountability, consistency, and certainty. Congress could say people who committed the same federal crime, under the same circumstances, were going to jail for the same amount of time. We could give judges a narrower set of sentencing guidelines to work with, and felons would be required to pay the same price. We'd be judging the crime, not the person.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Page 123
2000s, Promises to Keep (2008)

People, Time, Personality

“Hey, please, if you don't know me, please take a few seconds just to judge me by how I look. Appreciate the laugh there, thank you very much.”

Marc Maron (1963) Comedian

Source: Comedy Central Presents (2007)

“It was that hard; I still feel that way. But I believe that President Bush failed to lead. History will judge him harshly not for the mistakes he made- we all make mistakes- but for the opportunities he squandered.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Page 352
2000s, Promises to Keep (2008)

Way, Feeling, History

“[T]he Negro race, instead of being that object of pity or contempt which we usually consider it, is entitled, judged by the facts of history, to a place close by the side of the Saxon.”

Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator and lawyer

1860s, Toussaint L'Ouverture (1861)

History

“Justice is closely connected to respect for rights. Modern writers discuss both subjects together with no suggestion that one might discuss one with the other. It was not always so. Greek political theory and Roman Law had sophisticated ideas about justice in its various aspects, but did not embrace our conception of individual rights. This may seem counter-intuitive. How could a society recognize someone as the owner of a piece of property without acknowledging an individual right? How does legitimate one-man rule, monarchy, differ from its illegitimate parody, tyranny, unless the lawful king has a right to the authority he exercises that the tyrant does not?
The answer is that property and authority were defined by law rather than our notion of individual rights. To own property was to be the person to whom the law accorded the privileges and immunities that locally defined ownership. To be a legitimate ruler was to be the person the law designated to rule. It is a commonplace that ancient notions of law accorded far more power over property to the family and other groups than modern notions of private property do. Even under the Roman Law, where ownership had an 'absolute' and sovereign character, property was not understood in the modern way; when the law told the judge to give a man his ius, this primarily meant that he should be treated as the law required. The 'subjective' understanding of rights, whereby the right-holder may stand on his rights or not as he chooses, was not a Roman notion.”

Alan Ryan (1940) British philosopher

Justice (1993)

Family, Justice, Law, Way

“The flagrant disregard in the courtroom of elementary standards of proper conduct should not and cannot be tolerated. We believe trial judges confronted with disruptive, contumacious, stubbornly defiant defendants must be given sufficient discretion to meet the circumstances in each case.”

Hugo Black (1886–1971) U.S. Supreme Court justice

Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, 343 (1970).

“The more you realize that most judgements are greatly influenced by random, extraneous factors—that most people judging you are more like a fickle novel buyer than a wise and perceptive magistrate—the more you realize you can do things to influence the outcome.”

Paul Graham (1964) English programmer, venture capitalist, and essayist

"Two Kinds Of Judgment", April 2007

People

“For my own part I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities which he excites among his opponents. I have always set myself not merely to relish but to deserve thoroughly their censure.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

November 17, 1906, Institute of Journalists Dinner, London; in Churchill by Himself (2008), ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs, p. 392 ISBN 1586486381
Early career years (1898–1929)

Parting

“Every case that fell to him for opinion gave fresh occasion for the application of his principle that knowledge must precede understanding, and understanding should precede judging.”

Louis Brandeis (1856–1941) American Supreme Court Justice

Paul A. Freund, Proceedings in Memory of Mr. Justice Brandeis, 317 U.S. ix, xix–xx (1942).

Understanding, Knowledge

“The Judge has not organs to know and to deal with the text of the foreign law, and therefore requires the assistance of a foreign lawyer who knows how to interpret it.”

Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778–1868) English barrister, politician, and Lord Chancellor of Great Britain

Sussex Peerage Case (1844), 11 Cl. & F. 115.

Law

“To love life and men as God loves them —
for the sake of
their infinite possibilities,
to wait like Him,
to judge like Him,
without passing judgment,
to obey the order when it is given
and never look back.”

Dag Hammarskjöld (1905–1961) Swedish diplomat, economist, and author

Markings (1964)

Love, Life, Men, God

“The Court's statement that it is 'tempting' to acknowledge the authoritativeness of tradition in order to 'curb the discretion of federal judges' is, of course, rhetoric rather than reality; no government official is 'tempted' to place restraints upon his own freedom of action, which is why Lord Acton did not say 'Power tends to purify.' The Court's temptation is in the quite opposite and more natural direction -- towards systematically eliminating checks upon its own power; and it succumbs.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&navby=case&vol=505&invol=833&friend=oyez (1992) (dissenting). <br class="br">1990s

Nature, Reality, Freedom

“There is no use in trying to judge everything but the condition you are in right now. You are absolutely delusional if you think that you know anything right now.”

Why the lucky stiff American computer programmer

Collected PDFs (2013)

Thinking

“You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come into contact with a new idea.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

John Nuveen, as quoted in The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham (2005) by Marshall Shelley, p. 303
Misattributed

Pain, Age, Feeling, Idea

“I remember, when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum's circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities. But the exhibit on the programme which I most desired to see was the one described as "The Boneless Wonder." My parents judged that that spectacle would be too revolting and demoralising for my youthful eyes, and I have waited 50 years to see the boneless wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

A jibe at Prime Minister (and First Lord of the Treasury) Ramsay MacDonald during a speech in the House of Commons, January 28, 1931 "Trade Disputes and Trade Unions (Amendment) Bill" http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1931/jan/28/trade-disputes-and-trade-unions-1#column_1021. <br class="br">The 1930s

Youth, Parent, Waiting

“To see the world means judging the judges.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

World

“Classmate 1: Count Dashkov is close to the tsar…a minister at the court no less…
Classmate 2: Ha…that Mathieu Golovinski is a clever one. Meanwile he has a job…working as a clerk for the state police…
Classmate 3: He plays both sides……rumor has it that he organized a street protest last month!
Court clerk: You’re late again Golovinski…the judge is about to give a verdict on the evidence you provided in court!
Judge: The defendant will be brought forward!
Judge: This court convicts you as a rebel plotter!
Defense attorney: As his lawyer I protest…my client is being framed with false evidence!
Judge: These documents were provided by the state police… a responsible source…as his lawyer you were given an opportunity to examine them!
Defense attorney: Yes, I did! And they were clearly faked!. This police clerk creates and provides their evidence!
Judge: Ten years hard labor!
Defense attorney: You Golovinski, you fabricated them…you!
Golivinski: I only work for the police! So accuse them!
Defense attorney: One day you will be exposed!
Everyone knows what you are. The police hire you to fabricate evidence. It will come out’’’sooner or later!
Golovinski: Ha, ha, I’ll not be there long! Count Dashkov will find me another place!”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

Source: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005), pp.36-39

Falseness

“In the "fall of Adam" we must see, not the personal transgression of man, but simply the law of the dual evolution. Adam, or "Man," begins his career of existences by dwelling in the garden of Eden, "dressed in the celestial garment, which is a garment of heavenly light" (Sohar, ii., 229 b); but when expelled he is "clothed" by God, or the eternal law of Evolution or necessarianism, with coats of skin. But even on this earth of material degradation — in which the divine spark (Soul, a corruscation of the Spirit) was to begin its physical progression in a series of imprisonments from a stone up to a man's body — if he but exercise his WILL and call his deity to his help, man can transcend the powers of the angel. "Know ye not that we shall judge angels?" asks Paul (1 Corinthians, vi. 3). The real man is the Soul (Spirit), teaches the Sohar. "The mystery of the earthly man is after the mystery of the heavenly man… the wise can read the mysteries in the human face"”

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky book Isis Unveiled

ii., 76 a
Source: Isis Unveiled (1877), Volume II, Chapter VI

God, Law, Angels, Exercises

“At the risk of quoting Mephistopheles I repeat: Welcome to hell. A hell erected and maintained by human-governments, and blessed by black robed judges. A hell that allows you to see your loved ones, but not to touch them. A hell situated in America's boondocks, hundreds of miles away from most families. A white, rural hell, where most of the captives are black and urban. It is an American way of death.”

Mumia Abu-Jamal (1954) Prisoner, Journalist, Broadcaster, Author, Activist

All Things Censored (2001, Seven Stories Press), pp. 55-56

Love, Death, Family, Way

“God forbid that Judges upon their oath should make resolutions to enlarge jurisdiction.”

William Cowper, 1st Earl Cowper (1665–1723) English politician and first Lord Chancellor of Great Britain

Reeves v. Buttler (1715), Gilbert, Eq. Ca. 196; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 137.

God

“The prestige of the Nobel Prize is due to many causes, but in particular to its twofold idealistic and international character: idealistic in that it has been designed for works of lofty inspiration; international in that it is awarded after the production of different countries has been minutely studied and the intellectual balance sheet of the whole world has been drawn up. Free from all other considerations and ignoring any but intellectual values, the judges have deliberately taken their place in what the philosophers have called a community of the mind.”

Henri Bergson (1859–1941) French philosopher

In a letter accepting the 1927 Nobel Prize in literature http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1927/bergson-speech.html, read by the French minister, Armand Bernard.

World, Communication, Study, Country

“You say, "That man ought to die for transgressing the law of God." Let me suppose a case. Suppose you found your brother in bed with your wife, and put a javelin through both of them, you would be justified, and they would atone for their sins, and be received into the kingdom of God. I would at once do so in such a case; and under such circumstances, I have no wife whom I love so well that I would not put a javelin through her heart, and I would do it with clean hands. But you who trifle with your covenants, be careful lest in judging you will be judged. Every man and women has got to have clean hands and a pure heart, to execute judgment, else they had better let the matter alone. Again, suppose the parties are not caught in their iniquity, and it passes along unnoticed, shall I have compassion on them? Yes, I will have compassion on them, for transgressions of the nature already named, or for those of any other description. If the Lord so order it that they are not caught in the act of their iniquity, it is pretty good proof that He is willing for them to live; and I say let them live and suffer in the flesh for their sins, for they will have it to do.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses, 3:247 (March 16, 1856)
1850s

Love, Women, God, Law

“The government of the US has no moral authority to elect itself as the judge over human rights in Cuba, where there has not been a single case of disappearance, torture or extra-judicial execution since 1959, and where despite the economic blockade, there are levels of health, education and culture that are internationally recognised.”

Tariq Ali (1943) British Pakistani writer, journalist, and historian

Appeal signed by Tariq Ali in The Guardian, March 26, 2005. http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,1445897,00.html

Health, Education

“…in the Executive, Grant and Boutwell were varieties of the type — political specimens — pathetic in their helplessness to do anything with power when it came to them. They knew not how to amuse themselves; they could not conceive how other people were amused. Work, whiskey, and cards were life. The atmosphere of political Washington was theirs — or was supposed by the outside world to be in their control — and this was the reason why the outside world judged that Washington was fatal even for a young man of thirty-two, who had passed through the whole variety of temptations, in every capital of Europe, for a dozen years; who never played cards, and who loathed whiskey.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Life, People, World

“The conscience is the best and most impartial judge that a righteous man has.”

José de San Martín (1778–1850) Argentine general and independence leader

La conciencia es el mejor y más imparcial juez que tiene el hombre de bien.
Letter from Brussels (18 December 1827), quoted in La Rivista de Buenos Aires (1864) edited by Miguel Navarro Viola y Vicente G. Quesada, Vol. 4

“Wisdom is the fruit of communion; ignorance the inevitable portion of those who "keep themselves to themselves," and stand apart, judging, analysing the things which they have truly never known.”

Evelyn Underhill book Practical Mysticism

Source: Practical Mysticism (1914), Chapter I, What Is Mysticism?, p. 24

Wisdom

“Permit me, Sir, to add another circumstance in our colonies, which contributes no mean part towards the growth and effect of this untractable spirit. I mean their education. In no country perhaps in the world is the law so general a study. The profession itself is numerous and powerful; and in most provinces it takes the lead. The greater number of the deputies sent to the congress were lawyers. But all who read, and most do read, endeavour to obtain some smattering in that science. I have been told by an eminent bookseller, that in no branch of his business, after tracts of popular devotion, were so many books as those on the law exported to the plantations. The colonists have now fallen into the way of printing them for their own use. I hear that they have sold nearly as many of Blackstone's Commentaries in America as in England. General Gage marks out this disposition very particularly in a letter on your table. He states, that all the people in his government are lawyers, or smatterers in law; and that in Boston they have been enabled, by successful chicane, wholly to evade many parts of one of your capital penal constitutions. The smartness of debate will say, that this knowledge ought to teach them more clearly the rights of legislature, their obligations to obedience, and the penalties of rebellion. All this is mighty well. But my honourable and learned friend on the floor, who condescends to mark what I say for animadversion, will disdain that ground. He has heard, as well as I, that when great honours and great emoluments do not win over this knowledge to the service of the state, it is a formidable adversary to government. If the spirit be not tamed and broken by these happy methods, it is stubborn and litigious. Abeunt studia in mores. This study renders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defence, full of resources. In other countries, the people, more simple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance; and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Second Speech on Conciliation with America (1775)

Men, Happiness, People, Books

“No one cared enough to criticise, except himself who soon began to suffer from reaching his own limits. He found that he could not be this — or that — or the other; always precisely the things he wanted to be. He had not wit or scope or force. Judges always ranked him beneath a rival, if he had any; and he believed the judges were right. His work seemed to him thin, commonplace, feeble. At times he felt his own weakness so fatally that he could not go on; when he had nothing to say, he could not say it, and he found that he had very little to say at best.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Suffering, Time

“I know that back in the twenties everyone who saw it judged John Barrymore's Hamlet to be unforgettable. Great though it was, I found his Richard III even more impressive. Barrymore's sinister, half-mad hunchback became incandescent as he gleefully anticipated his conquest of the Lady Anne. The genius of the actor contrived a slight but inspired alteration of Shakespeare's: 'Was ever woman in this humour wooed? Was ever woman in this humour won?' The change to 'Never was woman in this manner wooed; never was woman in this manner won' heightened the deviltry in Richard's gloating.”

Marc Connelly (1890–1980) American playwright

Source: Voices offstage: a book of memoirs, (1968), p. 237; Cited in: Michael A. Morrison (1999) John Barrymore, Shakespearean Actor. p. 345

Change, Madness

“[about the woman who sued McDonald's because her coffee was too hot] We have trouble convicting people who confess to murder, but this woman is able to take three mil off of McDonald's? If the judge had any common sense, the trial should have gone like this: "Will the defendant please rise? Yeah, it's your fault. You're stupid. Coffee is supposed to be hot. Why didn't you blow on it before you chugged it down like a pledge having his first beer? Get out of my courtroom you stupid, stupid woman. Take your pinstriped parasite lawyer with you. Next case!"”

Dennis Miller (1953) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actor

"The Death of Common Sense".
Ranting Again

People, Stupidity, Coffee, Beer

“The judge also has a truth he wants to hide: He often hasn’t been completely candid in describing the facts or the law.”

Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) American lawyer, author

U.S. News & World Report (August 9, 1982)

Truth, Law

“Like my brothers who sit with me, I am extremely reluctant to decide anything except what is necessary for the special case, because I believe by long experience that judgments come with far more weight and gravity when they come upon points which the Judges are bound to decide, and I believe that obiter dicta, like the proverbial chickens of destiny, come home to roost sooner or later in a very uncomfortable way to the Judges who have uttered them, and are a great source of embarrassment in future cases. Therefore I abstain from putting a construction on more than it is necessary to do for this particular case.”

Charles Bowen (1835–1894) English judge

Cooke v. New River Co. (1888), L. R. 38 C. D. 70.

Way, Home, Future

“Jazz, often called America's classical music, so influenced our culture that Americans named a decade after it. Like the country of its birth, jazz blends many traditions, such as African-American folk, rhythm and blues, French Creole classical form, and gospel. Through the creation and performance of music like jazz, black Americans were better able to exchange ideas freely across racial and cultural barriers. Before our Nation made significant strides in truly promoting equal justice and opportunity for all, black and white musicians in the genres of jazz, blues, and country played together in jam sessions, recording studios, and small bands. In many ways, their art preceded social change, allowing black and white musicians to meet as equals and to be judged on their musical ability, rather than the color of their skin. Their music also provided an outlet for African Americans to speak passionately and brilliantly to the rest of the Nation and the world.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2001, Black Music (June 2001)

World, Justice, Art, Music

“We know well the means by which this association of the lord, priest, merchant, judge, soldier, and king founded its domination. It was by the annihilation of all free unions: of village communities, guilds, trades unions, fraternities, and mediæval cities.”

Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, revolutionary, economist, activist, geogr…

Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal (1896)
Context: We know well the means by which this association of the lord, priest, merchant, judge, soldier, and king founded its domination. It was by the annihilation of all free unions: of village communities, guilds, trades unions, fraternities, and mediæval cities. It was by confiscating the land of the communes and the riches of the guilds; it was by the absolute and ferocious prohibition of all kinds of free agreement between men; it was by massacre, the wheel, the gibbet, the sword, and the fire that Church and State established their domination, and that they succeeded henceforth to reign over an incoherent agglomeration of subjects, who had no direct union more among themselves.
It is now hardly thirty or forty years ago that we began to reconquer, by struggle, by revolt, the first steps of the right of association, that was freely practised by the artisans and the tillers of the soil through the whole of the middle ages.
And, already now, Europe is covered by thousands of voluntary associations for study and teaching, for industry, commerce, science, art, literature, exploitation, resistance to exploitation, amusement, serious work, gratification and self-denial, for all that makes up the life of an active and thinking being. We see these societies rising in all nooks and corners of all domains: political, economic, artistic, intellectual. Some are as shortlived as roses, some hold their own since several decades, and all strive — while maintaining the independence of each group, circle, branch, or section — to federate, to unite, across frontiers as well as among each nation; to cover all the life of civilized men with a net, meshes of which are intersected and interwoven.

Communication

“But Alexander (I of Macedon), proving himself to be an Argive, was judged to be a Greek; so he contended in the furlong race and ran a dead heat for first place.”

Herodotus book Histories

Book 5, Ch. 22, 2.
The Histories

Dead

“You seem to consider the federal judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions, a very dangerous doctrine, indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to William Charles Jarvis (1820)
1820s
Context: You seem to consider the federal judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions, a very dangerous doctrine, indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have with others the same passions for the party, for power and the privilege of the corps. Their power is the more dangerous, as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves.

Question

“There isn't a text in the Bible better worth keeping always in mind than that one, 'Judge not, that ye be not judged.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes book Elsie Venner

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Elsie Venner (1859)

“In judging myself I shall try to be as harsh as truth, as I want others also to be.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Introduction
1920s, An Autobiography (1927)
Context: In judging myself I shall try to be as harsh as truth, as I want others also to be. Measuring myself by that standard I must exclaim with Surdas: ' Where is there a wretch So wicked and loathsome as I? I have forsaken my Maker, So faithless have I been.' For it is an unbroken torture to me that I am still so far from him, who, as I fully know, governs every breath of my life, and whose offspring I am. I know that it is the evil passions within that keep me so far from Him, and yet I cannot get away from them.

Truth

“Since the deepest and truest dilemma, from which all good art springs, is the human condition we have every right to regard the needs of our own consciousness as the final court in judging the merit of a work of art, we have in fact a moral obligation to do so. This demands the precise honesty from the spectator as was required from the artist in making the painting. It is their common ground, the area within which communication can occur.”

Patrick Swift (1927–1983) British artist

Italian Report (1955)
Context: A more rewarding approach to painting, in my opinion the only valid one, is to regard it as a deeply personal and private activity and to remember that even when the painter works directly for the public — when there is sufficient common ground to allow him to do so — the real merit of the work will depend on the personal vision of the artist and the work will only be truly understood if it is approached by each in the same spirit as the painter painted it. We must be willing to assume the same sort of responsibility and share the dilemma out of which the work was created in order to be able to feel with the artist. Since the deepest and truest dilemma, from which all good art springs, is the human condition we have every right to regard the needs of our own consciousness as the final court in judging the merit of a work of art, we have in fact a moral obligation to do so. This demands the precise honesty from the spectator as was required from the artist in making the painting. It is their common ground, the area within which communication can occur. Art in the end speaks to the secret soul of the individual and of the most secret sorrows. For this reason it is true that the development that produces great art is a moral and not an aesthetic development..

Art, Spring, Communication, Painting

“And hold Humanity one man, whose universal agony
Still strains and strives to gain the goal, where agonies shall cease to be.
Believe in all things; none believe; judge not nor warp by "Facts" the thought;
See clear, hear clear, tho' life may seem Mâyâ and Mirage, Dream and Naught.”

Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) British explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, lin…

The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)
Context: And hold Humanity one man, whose universal agony
Still strains and strives to gain the goal, where agonies shall cease to be.
Believe in all things; none believe; judge not nor warp by "Facts" the thought;
See clear, hear clear, tho' life may seem Mâyâ and Mirage, Dream and Naught.
Abjure the Why and seek the How: the God and gods enthroned on high,
Are silent all, are silent still; nor hear thy voice, nor deign reply.
The Now, that indivisible point which studs the length of infinite line
Whose ends are nowhere, is thine all, the puny all thou callest thine.

Life, Dreams, Universe

“Why should he listen if he has within him all that is necessary? There is no reason now for listening, but rather for judging, pronouncing, deciding.”

José Ortega Y Gasset book The Revolt of the Masses

Chap. VIII: The Masses Intervene In Everything, And Why Their Intervention Is Solely By Violence
The Revolt of the Masses (1929)
Context: It is not a question of the mass-man being a fool. On the contrary, to-day he is more clever, has more capacity of understanding than his fellow of any previous period. But that capacity is of no use to him; in reality, the vague feeling that he possesses it seems only to shut him up more within himself and keep him from using it. Once for all, he accepts the stock of commonplaces, prejudices, fag-ends of ideas or simply empty words which chance has piled up within his mind, and with a boldness only explicable by his ingenuousness, is prepared to impose them everywhere.… Why should he listen if he has within him all that is necessary? There is no reason now for listening, but rather for judging, pronouncing, deciding. There is no question concerning public life, in which he does not intervene, blind and deaf as he is, imposing his "opinions."

Quotes about judge page 17

Quotes about judge
page 17