Jerome Frank Quotes & Sayings

Increasingly constructive doubt is the sign of advancing civilization. We must put question marks along many of our inherited legal dogmas, since they are dangerously out of line with social facts. — Jerome Frank

To the somnambulist, sleep-walking may seem more pleasant and less hazardous than wakeful walking, but the latter is the wiser mode of locomotion in the congested traffic of a modern community. It is about time to abandon judicial somnambulism. — Jerome Frank

To vest a few fallible men - prosecutors, judges, jurors - with vast powers of literary or artistic censorship, to convert them into what J.S. Mill called the "moral police" is to make them despotic arbiters of literary products ... If one day they ban mediocre books as obscene, another day they may do otherwise to a work of a genius. Originality, not too plentiful, should be cherished, not stifled. An author's imagination may be cramped if he must write with an eye on prosecutors or juries ... — Jerome Frank

Every lawyer of experience comes to know (more or less unconsciously) that in the great majority of cases, the precedents are none too good as bases of prediction. Somehow or other, there are plenty of precedents to go around. — Jerome Frank

Any treatment of an illness that does not also minister to the human spirit is grossly deficient. — Jerome Frank

To say I removes a false impression of a Jovian aloofness. — Jerome Frank

The inexpressible is the only thing that is worthwhile. — Jerome Frank

The test of the moral quality of a civilization is its treatment of the weak and powerless. — Jerome Frank

Only a very foolish lawyer will dare guess the outcome of a jury trial. — Jerome Frank

We want no dictatorship of physicists, as physicists. If our democracy is to realize its full promise, we want no dictatorship at all - of any species. What we want and need is the enlightened and active interest of all men of intelligence and goodwill in their government, and their participation in its functions. — Jerome Frank

Justice is what the judge ate for breakfast. — Jerome Frank