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Boldly stated by F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead in open court:

Judge: What do you suppose that I am on the bench for, Mr. Smith?
Smith: It is not for me to fathom the inscrutable workings of Providence.
__________

Judge: Are you trying to show contempt for this court, Mr Smith?
Smith: No, My Lord. I am attempting to conceal it.
__________

Judge: Really, Mr Smith, do give this Court credit for some little intelligence.
Smith: That is the mistake I made in the Court below, My Lord.
__________

Judge: I have listend very carefully, Mr. Smith, to what you have said, but I am none the wiser.
Smith: None the wiser perhaps, my Lord, but far better informed.
__________

(In a case against a tram company after a young boy was hit by a tram and rendered blind)

Judge: Poor boy–poor boy–blind. Put him on a chair so that the jury can see him.
Smith: Perhaps your Honour would like to have the boy passed round the jury box.
Judge: That is a most improper remark.
Smith: It was provoked by a most improper suggestion.
Judge: Mr. Smith, have you ever heard of a saying by Bacon–the great Bacon–that youth and discretion are ill-wedded companions.
Smith: Yes, I have. And have you ever heard of a saying by Bacon–the great Bacon–that a much talking Judge is like a ill-tuned cymbal?
Judge: You are extremely offensive, young man.
Smith: As a matter of fact, we both are, and the only difference between us is that I am trying to be, and you cannot help it.

booyah!

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From the New York Times:

Four pages into his dissent on Monday in an achingly boring dispute between pay phone companies and long distance carriers, John G. Roberts Jr., the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, put a song lyric where the citation to precedent usually goes:

“The absence of any right to the substantive recovery means that respondents cannot benefit from the judgment they seek and thus lack Article III standing,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. ” ‘When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.’ Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone, on Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia Records 1965).”

Check out the most-cited rockers in judicial opinions: