All quotes

The case before us illustrates better than most that the judicial power is often difficult in its exercise.

He executes justice for the fatherless and widow and loves the foreigner in giving him food and clothing.

Therefore love the foreigner, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

Don’t oppress the widow, the fatherless, the foreigner, nor the poor; and let none of you devise evil against his brother in your heart.’

“Thus has Yahweh of Armies spoken, saying, ‘Execute true judgment, and show kindness and compassion every man to his brother.

The real limit to be observed in friendship is this: the characters of two friends must be stainless.

Baffled, discountenanced, subdued, discredited, as the cause of justice and humanity is, it will be only the dearer to me.

Government has a right to survive and powers conferred upon it are not necessarily set at naught by the express prohibitions of the Bill of Rights.

The guaranties of civil liberty are but guaranties of freedom of the human mind and spirit and of reasonable freedom and opportunity to express them.

Our whole system of self-government will crumble either if officials elect what laws they will enforce or citizens elect what laws they will support.

Deep-rooted Customs, though wrong, are not easily altered; but it is the Duty of every one to be firm in that which they certainly know is right for them.

Have none of my Fellow Creatures an equitable Right to any Part which is called mine?

Now to keep faithful to the pure Counsellor, and under trying Circumstances suffer Adversity for Righteousness Sake, in this there is a Reward.

Great cases, like hard cases, make bad law. For great cases are called great, not by reason of their real importance in shaping the law of the future, but because of some accident of immediate overwhelming interest which appeals to the feelings and distorts the judgment.

we ought to give our friend pain if it will benefit him, but not to the extent of breaking off our friendship; but just as we make use of some biting medicine, that will save and preserve the life of the patient

It is during our most challenging and uncertain moments that our Nation's commitment to due process is most severely tested; and it is in those times that we must preserve our commitment at home to the principles for which we fight abroad.

If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the Government must cease.

Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature,--opposition to it in his love of justice.

This declared indifference, but, as I must think, real, covert zeal, for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate.

What I do say is that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in

Men of the best intentions and soundest views may differ in their construction of some parts of the Constitution, but there are others on which dispassionate reflection can leave no doubt.

Our Constitution does not contain the absurdity of giving power to make laws, and another power to resist them.

The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.

The American system rests on the assertion of the equal right of every man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, to freedom of conscience, to the culture and exercise of all his faculties.