Harold H. Greene Quotes

I enjoyed the administrative work because it involved working with Congress, city council, and the mayor. I had never been a politician so it was fun – learning political maneuvering.

I could see flames from the windows of my chambers. For the next three or four days we had major rioting here in Washington and I stayed at the court day and night.

I’m a great believer in the competitive system, and think that competition will bring us greater innovation and put American industry in information ahead of everyone also.

Frequently you have a clash between the more sterile letter of the law and the justice that underlies it, and I think one of the things I’ve been trying more or less, where it was possible, is to go with the justice rather than the letter of the law.

For a while, even in the house of good friends for dinner or for cocktails, they would really be upset. They thought I had single-handedly destroyed the best phone service in the world.

The enforcement of the law cannot depend on the justice of a cause or one man‘s conscience.

Every one of the world’s dictatorships can and does claim to be acting in the name of the people.

I liked discussion and debate and thought that these skills fit well with law. I also had an interest in justice – and later learned that sometimes law and justice actually agree!

The attorney general would call at 5 o’clock in the evening and say: ‘Tomorrow morning we are going to try to integrate the University of Mississippi. Get us a memo on what we’re likely to do, and what we can do if the governor sends the National Guard there.’

I don’t want to be influenced by outside opinion.

With competition everyone has to try harder.

The Sherman Act is similar in the economics sphere to the Bill of Rights in the personal sphere.

People are intimidated in court, and I try to make them more comfortable.

Defendants are being evaluated based on numerical grid without any aggravating circumstances being considered. The effect has been to transfer the disparity from the judge to the prosecutor allowing for a great deal of leeway on indictments.

The traditional practice is that the justices don’t ask the attorney general any questions, so as not to embarrass him. But Bobby Kennedy had let them know that he didn’t mind if they asked him questions and they did.