Earl Warren famous quotes

I'm very pleased with each advancing year. It stems back to when I was forty. I was a bit upset about reaching that milestone, but an older friend consoled me. 'Don't complain about growing old - many, many people do not have that privilege.'
-- Earl Warren

#Years #People #Upset

Racial discrimination in public education is unconstitutional.....All provisions of federal, state or local law requiring or permitting such discrimination must yield to this principle.
-- Earl Warren

#Yield #Law #Principles

Many people consider the things government does for them to be social progress but they regard the things government does for others as socialism.
-- Earl Warren

#Eugenics #Government #People

If it is a mistake of the head and not the heart don't worry about it, that's the way we learn.
-- Earl Warren

#Mistake #Heart #Worry

Ben Franklin may have discovered electricity- but it is the man who invented the meter who made the money.
-- Earl Warren

#Money #Men #May

I hate banks. They do nothing positive for anybody except take care of themselves. They're first in with their fees and first out when there's trouble.
-- Earl Warren

#Positive #Money #Hate

Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile I caught hell for.
-- Earl Warren

#Determination #Hell #Worthwhile

In civilized life, law floats in a sea of ethics.
-- Earl Warren

#Sea #Law #Ethics

It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.
-- Earl Warren

#Law #Justice #Alive

The fantastic advances in the field of electronic communication constitute a greater danger to the privacy of the individual.
-- Earl Warren

#Communication #Fields #Privacy

Don't complain about growing old — many, many people do not have that privilege.
-- Earl Warren

#People #Complaining #Growing

The police must obey the law while enforcing the law.
-- Earl Warren

#Integrity #Law #Hypocrisy

I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures.
-- Earl Warren

#Sports #Fear #Failure

The most tragic paradox of our time is to be found in the failure of nation-states to recognize the imperatives of internationalism.
-- Earl Warren

#Paradox #States #Found

The censor's sword pierces deeply into the heart of free expression.
-- Earl Warren

#Heart #Expression #Censorship

The success of any legal system is measured by its fidelity to the universal ideal of justice.
-- Earl Warren

#Law #Justice #Legal System

It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defence, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties which make the defence of our nation worthwhile.
-- Earl Warren

#Inspirational #Names #Ironic

Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.
-- Earl Warren

#Opportunity #Made #States

The only reason that there has been no sabotage or espionage on the part of Japanese-Americans is that they are waiting for the right moment to strike.
-- Earl Warren

#Waiting #Moments #Reason

A society, in the process of moving forward, often appears to be tearing itself apart. Certainly, an age of rapid change, such as ours, produces many paradoxes. But perhaps the most tragic paradox of our time is to be found in the failure of nation-states to recognize the imperatives of internationalism.
-- Earl Warren

#Moving Forward #Age #Paradox

Our Bill of Rights, the most precious part of our legal heritage, is under subtle and pervasive attacks... In the struggle between our world and Communism, the temptation to imitate totalitarian security methods must be resisted day by day... When the rights of any individual or group are chipped away, the freedom of all erodes.
-- Earl Warren

#Struggle #Rights #Our World

Mere unorthodoxy or dissent from the prevailing mores is not to be condemned. The absence of such voices would be a symptom of grave illness to our society.
-- Earl Warren

#War #Voice #Justice

[O]ur War of the Revolution was, in good measure, fought as a protest against standing armies.
-- Earl Warren

#War #Army #Revolution

The abhorrence of society to the use of involuntary confessions does not turn alone on their inherent untrustworthiness. It also turns on the deep-rooted feeling that the police must obey the law while enforcing the law; that, in the end, life and liberty can be as much endangered from illegal methods used to convict those thought to be criminals as from the actual criminals themselves.
-- Earl Warren

#Law #Feelings #Police

To summarize: Americans have one of the greatest legal systems, but not a monopoly of the sense of justice, which is universal; nor have we a permanent copyright on the means of securing justice, for it is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.
-- Earl Warren

#Mean #Law #Justice

In The Field Of Public Education, The Doctrine Of 'Separate But Equal' Has No Place
-- Earl Warren

#Education #Doctrine #Fields

To get what you want, STOP doing what isn't working.
-- Earl Warren

#Want #What You Want

When an individual is taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom by the authorities and is subjected to questioning . . . he must be warned prior to any questioning that he has the right to remain silent, that anything he says can be used against him in a court of law, that he has the right to the presence of an attorney, and that if he cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed for him prior to any questioning if he so desires.
-- Earl Warren

#Taken #Law #Desire

You sit up there, and you see the whole gamut of human nature. Even if the case being argued involves only a little fellow and $50, it involves justice. That's what is important.
-- Earl Warren

#Nature #Justice #Important

Prior to any questioning, the person must be warned that he has a right to remain silent, that any statement he does make may be used as evidence against him and that he has a right to the presence of an attorney, either retained or appointed.
-- Earl Warren

#Doe #May #Silent

Life and liberty can be as much endangered from illegal methods used to convict those thought to be criminals as from the actual criminals themselves.
-- Earl Warren

#Liberty #Criminals #Used

If Nixon is not forced to turn over tapes of his conversations with the ring of men who were conversing on their violations of the law, then liberty will soon be dead in this nation.
-- Earl Warren

#Men #Law #Liberty

Before this distinguished assembly and the world, the bells today proclaim the joyous tidings of the completion of this quietly soaring tower.
-- Earl Warren

#Towers #World #Bells

Liberty, not communism, is the most contagious force in the world.
-- Earl Warren

#Liberty #World #Communism

To separate children from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.
-- Earl Warren

#Birthday #Children #Heart

In mid-life the man wants to see how irresistible he still is to younger women. How they turn their hearts to stone and more or less commit a murder of their marriage I just don't know, but they do.
-- Earl Warren

#Heart #Men #Age

The man of character, sensitive to the meaning of what he is doing, will know how to discover the ethical paths in the maze of possible behavior.
-- Earl Warren

#Character #Men #Mazes

[Apollo 7 was] an expedition of the mind, not of the heart.
-- Earl Warren

#Heart #Mind #Apollo

Today, as always, the people, no less than the courts, must remain vigilant to preserve the principals of our Bill of Rights, lest in our desire to be secure we lose our ability to be free.
-- Earl Warren

#Gun #Rights #People

The old Court you and I served so long will not be worthy of its traditions if Nixon can twist, turn and fashion If Nixon gets away with that, then Nixon makes the law as he goes along - not the Congress nor the courts.
-- Earl Warren

#Fashion #Law #Long

Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.
-- Earl Warren

#Educational #Separation

A republic is not an easy form of government to live under, and when the responsibility of citizenship is evaded, democracy decays and authoritarianism takes over.
-- Earl Warren

#Responsibility #Government #Democracy

We are now at the point where we must decide whether we are to honour the concept of a plural society which gains strength through diversity, or whether we are to have bitter fragmentation that will result in perpetual tension and strife.
-- Earl Warren

#Diversity #Gains #Bitter

Legislatures represent people, not acres or trees.
-- Earl Warren

#People #Tree #Acres

Legislators represent people, not trees or acres. Legislators are elected by voters, not farms or cities or economic interests.
-- Earl Warren

#Cities #People #Tree

Churchmen are quick to defend religious freedom; lawyers were never so universally aroused as by President Roosevelt's Court bill; newspapers are most alert to civil liberties when there is a hint of press censorship in the air. And educators become perturbed at every effort to curb academic freedom. But too seldom do all of these become militant when ostensibly the rights of only one group are threatened. They do not always react to the truism that when the rights of any individual or group are chipped away, the freedom of all erodes.
-- Earl Warren

#Religious #Rights #Air

In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education.
-- Earl Warren

#Education #Children #Opportunity

The mere summoning of a witness and compelling him to testify against his will, about his beliefs, expressions or associations, is a measure of governmental interference. And when those forced revelations concern maters that are unorthodox, unpopular, or even hateful to the general public, the reactions in the life of the witness may be disastrous.
-- Earl Warren

#Expression #Government #May

Many agricultural counties are far more important in the life of the State than their population bears to the entire population of the State. It is for this reason that I have never been in favor of restricting their representation in our State Senate to a strictly population basis. It is the same reason that the founding fathers of our country gave balanced representation to the States of the Union, equal representation in one House and proportionate representation based upon population in the other.
-- Earl Warren

#Country #Father #House