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Not every defeat of authority is a gain for individual freedom, nor every judicial rescue of a convict a victory for liberty.

— Robert H. Jackson The Task of Maintaining Our Liberties: The Role of the Judiciary (1953)

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Freedom

More quotes by Robert H. Jackson

We can afford no liberties with liberty itself.

Procedural fairness, if not all that originally was meant by due process of law, is at least what it most uncompromisingly requires.

But when notice is a person's due, process which is a mere gesture is not 'due process.'

A confession is wholly and incontestably voluntary only if a guilty person gives himself up to the law and becomes his own accuser.

Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.

West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943)

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There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Robert H. Jackson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.