Chief Justice Quotes

In my opinion, Chief Justice Roberts put it best during his recent confirmation hearings. And he said, and I quote, "The framers were not the sort of people, having fought a revolution to get the right of self-government to sit down and say, 'Well, let's take all the difficult issues before us and let's have the judges decide them.' That would have been the farthest thing from their mind," however, I fear that the Supreme Court forgets this advice. ~ Mike DeWine

("It seemed to be the principle employment of both armies to look at each other with spyglasses," wrote the eminent Loyalist Peter Oliver, former chief justice of the province.) ~ David McCullough

Explaining how much I you is like explaining how the water tastes from the drops of the rain ~ Chief Justice Moalusi Tlotlo

In public at least, Roberts himself purports to have a different view of the Court than his conservative sponsors. "Judges are like umpires," he said at his confirmation hearing. "Umpires don't make the rules; they apply them." Elsewhere, Roberts has often said, "Judges are not politicians." None of this is true. Supreme Court justices are nothing at all like baseball umpires. It is folly to pretend that the awesome work of interpreting the Constitution, and thus defining the rights and obligations of American citizenship, is akin to performing the rote […] task of calling balls and strikes. When it comes to the core of the Court's work, determining the contemporary meaning of the Constitution, it is ideology, not craft or skill, that controls the outcome of cases. ~ Jeffrey Toobin

Chief Justice Warren Burger, a conservative appointed by Richard Nixon, described the new interpretation of the Second Amendment in an interview after his tenure as 'one of the greatest pieces of fraud-I repeat the word FRAUD-on the American public by special-interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime. ~ Fareed Zakaria

I am against the planned political assassinations by our intelligence and defense agents.The CIA-FBI-DIA and DISC (Defense Industry Security Command) were set up originally to protect citizens of the USA. They became their own judges and juries, private servants of corporations with investments at home and abroad. I am against the constant destruction of evidence in criminal matters and political assassinations. Prime witnesses are murdered before or after testifying. Diaries are forged and planted in obvious places. Doubles are created to confuse. The Police Departments manipulate facts in cooperation with conspirators. I am outraged that our judicial system since 1947 has been patterned after Nazi Germany. Patsies are dead or locked away. The assassins walk the streets or leave the country - "home free". I am against using the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Earl Warren, to cover up the assassination of President Kennedy. When the highest court is corrupt, there is no hope at local levels. ~ Mae Brussell

The irony of the Supreme Court hearing on these cases last week and of the outright hostility that the Court has displayed against religion in recent years is that above the head of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is a concrete display of the Ten Commandments. ~ Cliff Stearns

Jonathan Trumbull, as Governor of Connecticut, in official proclamation: 'The examples of holy men teach us that we should seek Him with fasting and prayer, with penitent confession of our sins, and hope in His mercy through Jesus Christ the Great Redeemer." Proclamation for a Day of Fasting and Prayer, March 9, 1774'

Samuel Chase, while Chief Justice of Maryland,1799 (Runkel v Winemiller) wrote: 'By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion...'

The Pennsylvania Supreme court held (Updegraph v The Commonwealth), 1824: 'Christianity, general Christianity, is and always has been a part of the common law...not Christianity founded on any particular religious tenets; not Christianity with an established church, but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men...'

In Massachusetts, the Constitution reads: 'Any every denomination of Christians, demeaning themselves peaceably, and as good subjects of the commonwealth, shall be equally under the protection of the law: and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law.'
Samuel Adams, as Governor of Massachusetts in a Proclamation for a Day of Fasting and Prayer, 1793: 'we may with one heart and voice humbly implore His gracious and free pardon through Jesus Christ, supplicating His Divine aid . . . [and] above all to cause the religion of Jesus Christ, in its true spirit, to spread far and wide till the whole ear ~ Samuel Adams

In the final scene of Power, the Supreme Court justices appear as a striking abstraction: Nine scowling masks line up in a row on top of a giant podium. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes speaks the majority opinion: 'Water power, the right to convert it into electric energy, and the electric energy thus produced constitute property belonging to the United States. ~ Susan Quinn

Every calling is great if greatly pursued."-Late Former Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes ~ R.W. Preston

When RBG fretted over the first dry opinion the chief justice assigned her, O'Connor gave her a pep talk. As RBG read that opinion on the bench, O'Connor, who had dissented in the case, passed her a note. "This is your first opinion for the Court," she had written. "It is a fine one, I look forward to many more." Remembering the comfort that note gave her on such a nerve wracking day, RBG did the same for the next two women to join the court, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. ~ Irin Carmon

All the figures who upheld and defended American slavery - Senators John C. Calhoun and Stephen Douglas, President James Buchanan, Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, architect of the Dred Scott decision, and the main leaders of the Confederacy - were Democrats. ~ Dinesh D'Souza

Let's throw his ass out the airlock," suggested the Speaker of the House.
"We can't do that," said the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He was a feeble old Mechanist who was subject to nosebleeds. "He is still Secretary of State and can't be sentenced without impeachment by the Senate."
The three Senators, two men and a woman, looked interested. The Senate didn't see much action in the government of the tiny Democracy. They were the least trusted members of the crew and were outnumbered by the House. ~ Bruce Sterling

I think even though the court is moving toward trying to translate the Constitution into a digital age, there was that wonderful unanimous decision that Chief Justice Roberts wrote saying you can't search a cellphone on arrest without a warrant. ~ Jeffrey Rosen

On the whole, yes, I would rather be the Chief Justice of the United States, and a quieter life than that which becomes at the White House is more in keeping with the temperament, but when taken into consideration that I go into history as President, and my children and my children's children are the better placed on account of that fact, I am inclined to think that to be President well compensates one for all the trials and criticisms he has to bear and undergo. ~ William Howard Taft

It's not hard, then, to see how the simple message of a Jewish carpenter in Nazareth became so popular. Jesus didn't talk much about justice. He talked about mercy. He talked about forgiveness. As his followers see it, Jesus is the Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals, Universal Circuit. And he's a pretty lenient jurist. ~ Jonathan V. Last

The issue of gay marriage has reached the Supreme Court and observers are analyzing every detail to predict how each justice will vote. Experts say Chief Justice John Roberts is likely to rule in favor of gay marriage based on the fact that he spent Tuesday's hearings watching the Tony Award nominations. ~ David Letterman

And Eleanor's husband was the man who did the interning. And I think they - Governor Warren, who was later to become such an impassioned Chief Justice on all sorts of human rights issues, was very big in the internment process. And I think that we simply sometimes tend not to understand or remember how people felt. ~ William A. Rusher

Chief Justice Roberts has expressly said that the Constitution and the government should be colorblind, he sees no difference between government action that discriminates against minorities and one that benefits minorities. ~ Erwin Chemerinsky

The most important extra-curricular lesson we learned, - and we learned it properly, - was summed up in Chief Justice Jay's dictum that "justice is always the same, whether it be due from one man to a million, or from a million to one man." We learned this, not by precept, but by example, which is the best way to learn such lessons. In ~ Albert Jay Nock

Earlier in [2007] the [Prime Minister's Office] had also drawn criticism for trying to muzzle the judiciary. The reproach came from Antonio Lamer, the former chief justice of the Supreme Court ... 'I must say I was taken aback,' said Lamer, who sat on the Supreme Court for twenty years. 'The prime minister is going the wrong route as regards the independence of the judiciary. He's trying to interfere with the sentencing process. ~ Lawrence Martin

Put it this way. As long as Jeyaretnam [Workers' Party leader] stands for what he stands for -- a thoroughly destructive force for me -- we will knock him. There are two ways of playing this. One, a you attack the policies; two, you attack the system. Jeyaretnam was attacking the system, he brought the Chief Justice into it. If I want to fix you, do I need the Chief Justice to fix you? Everybody knows that in my bag I have a hatchet, and a very sharp one. You take me on, I take my hatchet, we meet in the cul-de-sac. That's the way I had to survive in the past. That's the way the communists tackled me. He brought the Chief Justice into the political arena. He brought my only friend in university into our quarrel. How dare he! ~ Lee Kuan Yew

The Stamp Act was a direct tax imposed on the colonies by King George III. This act inevitably led to the American Revolution. Just as the Stamp Act did in 1765, Obamacare should act as a wake-up call. Chief Justice Roberts provides us with a similar call to action. ~ Rand Paul

I was a chief justice. And before that, I was a district court judge, handled major felonies, including capital murder cases; and I handled major civil litigation. ~ Louie Gohmert

Tom Jr. was steeped in Free Soil politics and was now chief justice of the Kansas State Supreme Court. ~ Robert L. O'Connell

But the Chief Justice says, 'There must be an ultimate arbiter somewhere.' True, there must; but does that prove it is either party? The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union, assembled by their deputies in convention, at the call of Congress or of two-thirds of the States. Let them decide to which they mean to give an authority claimed by two of their organs. And it has been the peculiar wisdom and felicity of our Constitution, to have provided this peaceable appeal, where that of other nations is at once to force. ~ Thomas Jefferson

The death of chief justice Rehnquist and the president's nomination of John Roberts raises the stakes for the court and the American people exponentially. ~ Ralph G. Neas

She wanted us to feel we were above everyone in the town. She really did tell us that we were related to Chief Justice John Marshall, and that may have been true. I never did bother to find out. ~ Fay Wray

There were countless fugitive slaves, but only one - Dred Scott - had the patience to endure the vicissitudes of America's legal system. But it was all worth it when he made it to the highest court in the land and was told by the chief justice that he was a) wrong and b) not a man, but a piece of property.
His true reward, however, would come years later, after he was dead and it was of no use to him. For his case was a precedent, and today it is discussed by historians, memorized by high-school students, and joked about by assholes like myself. ~ Stephen Colbert

Soon after I returned to private practice, former Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger called me one day. ~ Fred F. Fielding

All the big corporations depreciate their possessions, and you can, too, provided you use them for business purposes. For example, if you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, a business-related newspaper, you can deduct the cost of your house, because, in the words of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger in a landmark 1979 tax decision: Where else are you going to read the paper? Outside? What if it rains? ~ Dave Barry

For instance, while writing this, I was summoned to attend jury duty. Throughout the jury selection process, coordinators and judges reminded us how important our presence was, and how deeply they and the State of Oregon appreciated our service. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Oregon and several judges who may or may not have been actors thanked us via video. The big joke of it was that attending jury service is mandatory and my summons threatened me with the possibility of being held in contempt of court for non-compliance. That pretty much sums up how the state "appreciates" its citizens. "We ~ Jack Donovan

Jefferson was relentless in pursuing and putting down threats to his vision of a republican nation. Whether they were Federalist judges and other officeholders - including the chief justice of the United States - or hostile newspapermen, Jefferson's foes faced spirited challenges from the President's House. ~ Jon Meacham

The chief-justice was rich, quiet, and infamous. ~ Thomas B. Macaulay

Child that is a beautiful note," the chief justice praised her, "but the next time you write your title, add an O to the countess. ~ Patricia Grasso

To those who will decide if he should be tried for 'high crimes and misdemeanors' -the House of Representatives-
And to those who would sit in judgment at such a trial if the House impeaches -the Senate-
And to the man who would preside at such an impeachment trial -the Chief Justice of the United States, Warren Burger-
And to the nation ...
The President said, 'I want you to know that I have no intention whatever of ever walking away from the job that the American people elected me to do for the people of the United States.'
- Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward ~ Carl Bernstein

I was asked three times directly in the hearing before the board of the judiciary whether or not I would continue to acknowledge God if I were to resume my position as chief justice. And I said I would. ~ Roy Moore

A chief justice's authority is really quite limited, and the dynamic among all the justices is going to affect whether he can accomplish much or not. There is this convention of referring to the Taney Court, the Marshall Court, the Fuller Court, but a chief justice has the same vote that everyone else has. ~ John Roberts

world. Christians believe there is a time when all injustice will end and all the wrongs of the universe will be entirely set right. There is a Chief Justice who knows all and will absolutely make it right. Debts will be paid. Wrongs will be righted. Justice will be served. But that includes your wrongs and mine. We owe, too. We are a part of the system, and we are a part of the problem. ~ Bobby Griffith

But let us not forget, too, that it was John Adams who nominated George Washington to be commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. It was John Adams who insisted that Jefferson be the one to write the Declaration of Independence. And it was President John Adams who made John Marshall chief justice of the Supreme Court. As a casting director alone, he was brilliant. Abigail ~ David McCullough

It is extraordinary that each of the three individuals this president [ George W. Bush] has nominated for the Supreme Court - Chief Justice [John] Roberts, Harriet Miers and now Judge Alito - has served not only as a lawyer for the executive branch, but has defended the most expansive view of presidential authority. ~ Edward Kennedy

The Lord Chief Justice of England recently said that the greater part of his judicial time was spent investigating collisions between propelled vehicles, each on its own side of the road, each sounding its horn and each stationary. ~ Philip Guedalla

Within the brain's most secret cells,
A certain lord chief justice dwells,
Of sov'reign power, whom one and all,
With common voice we reason call. ~ Charles Churchill

Customary greeting to Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, What's shaking, chiefy baby? ~ Thurgood Marshall

Chief Justice [John] Roberts compared judges to umpires, who apply rules they did not write and cannot change to the competition before them. ~ Orrin Hatch

Got good news and bad news for you, Mr. President. The good news is that Chief Justice John Roberts just saved your legacy and, perhaps, your presidency by writing for the Supreme Court majority to rule health care reform constitutional. ~ Ron Fournier

It's not enough to be quiet. Quietness is the absence of noise. We need peace, the presence of justice and to be - and so people here can coexist and live together. ~ Jesse Jackson

Keep it on the down-low." "The what?" "It's a term I've learned from a human. It means keep it secret. It's no one's business and therefore they can't start any trouble if they disagree with the relationship. The male said he did that with an undesirable female." His face grew solemn. "He laughed when I commented that her looks should be irrelevant if she made him happy. I wasn't sure how to take that but I think he cares too much for appearances. The term is the same though. It means being with someone and no one knows." Justice stood. "I don't like that term. Anyone who would dismiss a person because of how they look isn't someone intelligent enough to learn from." "You going home?" Tiger glanced ~ Laurann Dohner

If we fulfill our responsibility to the Constitution, the Supreme Court will be filled with superior legal minds who will pursue the one agenda that our founding fathers intended in writing the Constitution: justice, rather than political or personal goals. ~ Chuck Grassley

And what sort of choice is fall in love with me, or you're a pig?"
"Justice." Lizzie twirled a lock of hair around her little finger. ~ Ursley Kempe

Justice has nothing to do with what goes on in a courtroom; Justice is what comes out of a courtroom. ~ Clarence Darrow

The Coalition for International Justice estimated that 450,000 people in Darfur have died since the deadly genocide began some three years ago. ~ Kendrick Meek

John Bunyan: "But one day, as I was passing in the field, and that too with some dashes on my conscience, fearing lest yet all was not right, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul, Thy righteousness is in heaven; and methought withal, I saw, with the eyes of my soul, Jesus Christ at God's right hand; there, I say, as my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was adoing, mGod could not say of me, He wants my righteousness, for that was just before him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." (Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, 35-36) ~ John Bunyan

One of the chief characteristics of a mob is its quickness. It is sudden. It pounces. ~ Teju Cole

Some team! The Chief was doing so many jobs alone. I'd fix on the Chief's raw, rope-burned palms or all the gray hairs collected in his sink, and I'd suffer this terrible side pain that Kiwi said was probably an ulcer and Ossie diagnosed as lovesickness. Or rather a nausea produced by the "black fruit" of love - a terror that sprouted out of your love for someone like rotting oranges on a tree branch. Osceola knew all about this black fruit, she said, because she'd grown it for our mother, our father, Grandpa Sawtooth, even me and Kiwi. Loving a ghost was different, she explained - that kind of love was a bare branch. I pictured this branch curving inside my sister: something leafless and complete, elephantine, like a white tusk. No rot, she was saying, no fruit. You couldn't lose a ghost to death. ~ Karen Russell

The best product should be bought, the best man should be rewarded more. Interfering factors which befuddle this triumph of virtue, justice, truth, and efficiency, etc., should be kept to
an absolute minimum or should approach zero as a limit. ~ Abraham Maslow

This man accepted everything, excused everything, forgave everything, blessed everything, welcomed everything, and asked of Providence, of men, of justice, of society, of nature, of the world, one thing only - that Cosette love him! ~ Victor Hugo

[Justice] Murphy... who ruled against the state [anti-sodomy] law... didn't see why the Supreme Court had to dwell on the historical background of sodomy laws [before striking them down]. All one really had to know to decide the case, he reasoned, was that Texas and its legions of moralizers let people have sex with animals. End of story. ~ Dale Carpenter

You prefer to continue knitting, that is your decision. If you prefer to serve the cause of justice, I hope that you may at least find it interesting. Let justice roll down like waters. And righteousness like an everlasting stream. Amos. ~ Agatha Christie

A country isn't a rock. And it isn't an extension of one's self. *It's what it stands for, when standing for something is the most difficult!* Before the people of the world - let it now be noted in our decision here that this is what *we* stand for: *justice, truth... and the value of a single human being!* ~ Abby Mann

When I was growing up, my white friends would call me: 'Hey, Chief!' Even when I go to work now, people call me 'Chief.' ~ Adam Beach

Dost thou understand me, sinful soul? He wrestled with justice, that thou mightest have rest; He wept and mourned, that thou mightest laugh and rejoice; He was betrayed, that thou mightest go free; was apprehended, that thou mightest escape; He was condemned, that thou mightest be justified; and was killed, that thou mightest live; He wore a crown of thorns, that thou mightest wear a crown of glory; and was nailed to the cross, with His arms wide open, to show with what freeness all His merits shall be bestowed on the coming soul; and how heartily He will receive it into His bosom? ~ John Bunyan

the phantom of social justice tormented him. ~ Victor Hugo

To use the machineries of justice to commit injustice is the deepest offense to the Father of Winter." He ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

Education is the chief remedy for all those great evils which afflict the country. Education will not only cultivate and improve the intellect of the nation, but will also purify its character. ~ Keshub Chandra Sen

The average Negro has largely lost faith in middle-class whites. In his hour of need he seeks not "talk" but dynamic action. He looks upon the middle-class idea of long-term educational and cultural changes with fear and mistrust. He is interested only in what can be achieved immediately by political pressure to get jobs, decent housing, and education for his children. He describes with disgust the efforts in his behalf by most middle-class Negro and white intellectuals as "pink tea methods--some times well-meanin' but gettin' us nowhere. ~ Bayard Rustin

When these resources are degraded or polluted, then there are fewer of them for the rest of us, and then we start competing for them and eventually as we compete, there are those of us, who have the capacity, who have the ability to be the controllers, to decide who accesses them, how much they access, and eventually there is a conflict. Those who feel marginalized, those who feel excluded, eventually react in an effort to get their own justice, and we have conflict. ~ Wangari Maathai

There are matters in the Bible, said to be done by the express commandment of God, that are shocking to humanity and to every idea we have of moral justice. ~ Thomas Paine

I think 'Hail to the Chief' has a nice ring to it. ~ John F. Kennedy

At some time, here or hereafter, every account must be settled, and every debt paid in full. ~ John H. Vincent

He called himself "chief among sinners" yet proclaimed himself made new in Christ. ~ Liz Curtis Higgs

His hand reached for his throat, fumbling for the small leather pouch he always wore about his neck. Inside he kept the bones of the four fingers his king had shortened for him, on the day he made Davos a knight. My luck. His shortened fingers patted at his chest, groping, finding nothing. The pouch was gone, and the fingerbones with them. Stannis could never understand why he'd kept the bones. "To remind me of my king's justice," he whispered through cracked lips. But now they were gone. ~ George R R Martin

FAITH Coming unto God, I believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him: I know that my Redeemer liveth; that He is the Christ the Son of the Living God; that He is indeed the Saviour of the world; that He came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. Through the grace of Jesus Christ we believe that we shall be saved even as our fathers withal. I believe verily to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. ~ Lancelot Andrewes

The essential function of the State is to maintain peace, justice, law, and order, and to protect the individual citizen against aggression, violence, theft, and fraud. ~ Henry Hazlitt

I want to write music that's going to appeal to everyone. ~ Victoria Justice

You are not judged by the height you have risen, but from the depth you have climbed. ~ Frederick Douglass

Your Honor," the jury foreman began to read, "We the jury find in favor of the . . . ~ Mark M. Bello

And if his youth was obvious, the Glorious Cause was to a large degree a young man's cause. The commander in chief of the army, George Washington, was himself only forty-three. John Hancock, the President of the Continental Congress, was thirty-nine, John Adams, forty, Thomas Jefferson, thirty-two, younger even than the young Rhode Island general. In such times many were being cast in roles seemingly beyond their experience or capacities, and Washington had quickly judged Nathanael Greene to be "an object of confidence. ~ David McCullough

Their Big Chief, Bo Dollis, would marshal them all together and they would start off down Dryades, with Chief Bo chanting one of the Indian songs accompanied by drums and tambourines, and the whole gang shouting back the antiphonal response. ~ Tom Piazza

It was said that everyone appointed by the Reagan administration in a major public health capacity was either a Mormon or a fundamentalist. The chief spokesman for the administration now was the overripe and venomous Patrick Buchanan, one of whose major qualifications for the job was his widely quoted remark that nature was finally exacting her price on homosexuals for having spilled their seed against her. ~ Paul Monette

I spent all day wandering up and down the hallways, staring at the Mona Lisa and Canova's 'Psyche and Cupid' and the 'Venus de Milo' and Caravaggio's 'The Death of the Virgin' and hundreds of other works in all shapes and sizes and colors. Just before I was about to leave, I was staring at Michelangelo's 'The Dying Slave', and I suddenly realized that every single work I had seen expressed the same thing, the same intense longing for beauty and immortality and justice and compassion. It was as though all of these artists from throughout history were there in those long hallways crying out the same anguished plea in a thousand different languages. ~ Jonathan Hull

Part of the scandal of American Christianity is that statistically the U.S. is the most Christian country in the world, and yet as a country we have the greatest income inequality in the world. And as a country we are uncritically committed, not simply to being the most powerful nation in the world militarily, but to being as militarily powerful as the rest of the world combined.
We Christians live in a tradition that is passionate about issues of economic justice and peace and yet at least half of American Christians, probably even more, think it's really important that we be as powerful as the rest of the world put together. ~ Marcus J. Borg

One of the chief reasons for the widespread fear of the Huns rested on their ability to travel very long distances in relatively short periods. This ability may well have been based on their use of horseshoes. ~ Carroll Quigley

Because for her, money isn't the issue. This is about revenge, payback, even worse, justice. ~ Mark M. Bello

For me philosophy begins with these experiences of disappointment: a disappointment at the level of what I would think of as "meaning," namely that, given that there is no God, what is the meaning of life? And, given that we live in an unjust world, how are we to bring about justice? ~ Simon Critchley