Enhance Your Quote Experience
Enjoy ad-free browsing, unlimited collections, and advanced search features with Premium.
Over the years, I have asked myself what I can do about the problem of too much law. Ultimately, I always circle back to the same answer: not much. A… - Neil Gorsuch
" "Over the years, I have asked myself what I can do about the problem of too much law. Ultimately, I always circle back to the same answer: not much. As a judge, my job is to apply the law. I cannot change the underlying impulses that have led us to a society to regulate ever more, criminalize ever more, and punish ever more. The best I can do is share with you what I have seen from my unusual vantage in our legal system. Judges are not supposed to live "isolated from... society" but are encouraged to engage in a "wide range" of life's activities and "contribute to the law, the legal system, and the administration of justice." Many of my colleagues and predecessors have done just that, offering thoughtful books on an array of topics. It is in that same spirit that I offer this book.
But if any real and lasting change is possible, it will not come from judges like me. It will come from people whose stories are recounted here. As Havel witnessed during the fall of communism, many of the deepest changes in his own society came from "unknown... people who wanted no more than to be able to live within the truth, to play the music they enjoyed, to sing the songs that were relevant to their lives, and to live freely in dignity and partnership... They had been given every opportunity to adapt to the status quo... Yet they decided on a different course."
English
Collect this quote
About Neil Gorsuch
Neil McGill Gorsuch (August 29, 1967) is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Gorsuch is a proponent of textualism in statutory interpretation, originalism in interpreting the U.S. Constitution, and is an advocate of natural law philosophy.
Biography information from Wikiquote
Also Known As
Native Name:
Neil McGill Gorsuch
Alternative Names:
Neil M. Gorsuch
Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.
Additional quotes by Neil Gorsuch
What do I mean by courage? Well, let's start with what I don't mean. I don't mean blind bullheadedness or rudeness or incivility. We have all too much of those things in our culture and in our profession. They are pretenders of courage, not the real thing. For true courage will often require you to admit a mistake, hold your tongue, or wait to fight another day. When it requires you to stand up against the powers arrayed around you, it will also require you to do so with not just respect but affection for your fellow citizen. What I mean by courage is what Atticus Finch meant by it in To Kill a Mockingbird. You may remember that Finch defended an African-American man wrongly accused of raping a white woman in Alabama during the Great Depression- and that in taking on the representation he faced criticism and threats from his friends and community. As he told his daughter in the book: "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what."
In truth, the push and pull between national and local authorities that federalism allows has nothing to do with benefiting one party or another; it has more to do with the fact that no single government can always get it right. Protecting federalism means ensuring that when one government loses its way, another can help light the way back.
Loading...