It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have been forged in controversies involving not very nice people.
The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself and not what we have said about it.
We forget that the most successful statesmen have been professionals. Lincoln was a professional politician.
All our work, our whole life is a matter of semantics, because words are the tools with which we work, the material out of which laws are made, out of which the Constitution was written. Everything depends on our understanding of them.
The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes.
Judicial judgment must take deep account of the day before yesterday in order that yesterday may not paralyze today.
