When we went to school we were told that we were governed by laws, not men. As a result of that, many people think there is no need to pay any attention to judicial candidates because judges merely apply the law by some mathematical formula and a good judge and a bad judge all apply the same kind of law. The fact is that the most important part of a judge’s work is the exercise of judgment and that the law in a court is never better than the common sense judgment of the judge that is presiding.

Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) US Supreme Court Justice (1941–54), lawyer, jurist, politician

Speech, Greater Buffalo Advertising Club, New York (1933)
    (Source)

Quoted in Eugene Gerhart, America's Advocate: Robert H. Jackson, ch. 4 (1958).