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Harlan F. Stone Quotes

If a juror feels that the statute involved in any criminal offence is unfair, or that it infringes upon the defendant's natural god-given unalienable or constitutional rights, then it is his duty to affirm that the

If a juror feels that the statute involved in any criminal offence is unfair, or that it infringes upon the defendant's natural god-given unalienable or constitutional rights, then it is his duty to affirm that the offending statute is really no law at all and that the violation of it is no crime at all, for no one is bound to obey an unjust law.

Harlan F. Stone
Rights, Offending, Law

Distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.

Harlan F. Stone
Equality, People, Doctrine
Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81, (100), 1943.

The law itself is on trial quite as much as the cause which is to be decided.

Harlan F. Stone
Law, Trials, Causes

Democracy cannot survive without the guidance of a creative minority.

Harlan F. Stone
Creative, Democracy, Minorities
"Harlan Fiske Stone, Pillar of the Law" by Alpheus Thomas Mason, (p. 95), 1956.

Words, especially those of a constitution, are not to be read with such stultifying narrowness.

Harlan F. Stone
Constitution
United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, (316), 1941.

History teaches us that there have been but few infringements of personal liberty by the state which have not been justified, as they are here, in the name of righteousness and the public good, and few which have not been directed, as they are now, at politically helpless minorities.

Harlan F. Stone
Names, Liberty, Minorities
Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586, 1940.

The guarantees of civil liberty are but guarantees of freedom of the human mind and spirit and of reasonable freedom and opportunity to express them...The very essence of the liberty which they guarantee is the freedom of the individual from compulsion as to what he shall think and what he shall say...

Harlan F. Stone
Opportunity, Thinking, Essence
Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586, (604), 1940.

The right to participate in the choice of representatives for Congress includes, as we have said, the right to cast a ballot and to have it counted at the general election whether for the successful candidate or not.

Harlan F. Stone
Successful, Choices, Election
United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, (318), 1941.

The [tenth] amendment states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered.

Harlan F. Stone
Rights, States, Amendments
United States v. Darby Lumber Company, 312 U.S. 100, (124), 1941.

The taxing power of the Federal Government, my dear; the taxing power is sufficient for everything you want and need.

Harlan F. Stone
Government, Political, Needs

There is grim irony in speaking of the freedom of contract of those who, because of their economic necessities, give their service for less than is needful to keep body and soul together.

Harlan F. Stone
Giving, Soul, Together
Morehead v. N.Y. ex rel. Tipaldo, 298 U.S. 587, (632), 1936.

To say that only those businesses affected with a public interest may be regulated is but another way of stating that all those businesses which may be regulated are affected with a public interest.

Harlan F. Stone
May, Way, Interest
Tyson and Brother v. Banton, 273 U.S. 418, (451), 1927.

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