Arthur Goldberg Quotations

Law not served by power is an illusion; but power not ruled by law is a menace which our nuclear age cannot afford.

You cannot rectify every real or alleged wrong immediately. Time must enter into the picture.

The concept of neutrality can lead to a brooding and pervasive devotion to the secular and a passive, or even active, hostility to the religious. Such results are not only not compelled by the Constitution, but, it seems to me, are prohibited by it.

The basic guarantees of our Constitution are warrants for the here and now, and unless there is an overwhelmingly compelling reason, they are to be promptly fulfilled.

No system of criminal justice can, or should, survive if it comes to depend for its continued effectiveness on the citizens' abdication through unawareness of their constitutional rights. No system worth preserving should have to fear that if an accused is permitted to consult with a lawyer, he will become aware of, and exercise, these rights.

History teaches us that the past is full of luck and chance and circumstance, without any one of which, life could have been radically different.

It is never easy to define what is moral, particularly in foreign policy. But at the risk of being simplistic, it appears to me that a foreign policy that is morally right protects human rights everywhere.

I am surprised nothing has been made of the fact that astronaut Neil Armstrong carried no sidearms when he landed on the moon.

America is not fighting to win a war. We are fighting to give an application to an old Greek proverb, which is that the purpose of war is not to annihilate an enemy but to get him to mend his ways. And we are confident we can get the enemy to mend his.

Modern diplomats approach every problem with an open mouth

It is fundamental that the great powers of Congress to conduct war and to regulate the Nation's foreign relations are subject to the constitutional requirements of due process. The imperative necessity for safeguarding these rights to procedural due process under the gravest of emergencies has existed throughout our constitutional history, for it is then, under the pressing exigencies of crisis, that there is the greatest temptation to dispense with fundamental constitutional guarantees which, it is feared, will inhibit governmental action.

If Columbus had an advisory committee he would probably still be at the dock.

If Columbus had had an advisory committee he would probably still be at the dock.

The trick is to be there when it's settled.