In our country are evangelists and zealots of many different political, economic and religious persuasions whose fanatical conviction is that all thought is divinely classified into two kinds - that which is their own and that which is false and dangerous.
Robert H. JacksonIt is not the function of government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.
Robert H. JacksonThe price of freedom of religion or of speech or of the press is that we must put up with, and even pay for, a good deal of rubbish.
Robert H. JacksonThe Tax Court is independent, and its neutrality is not clouded by prosecuting duties. Its procedures assure fair hearings. Its deliberations are evidenced by careful opinions. All guides to judgment available to judges are habitually consulted and respected. It has established a tradition of freedom from bias and pressures. It deals with a subject that is highly specialized and so complex as to be the despair of judges. It is relatively better staffed for its task than is the judiciary.
Robert H. JacksonWhen the Supreme Court moved to Washington in 1800, it was provided with no books, which probably accounts for the high quality of early opinions.
Robert H. JacksonWe can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the prices is not too great. But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.
Robert H. Jackson