Consequences cannot alter statutes, but may help to fix their meaning.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOHistory or custom or social utility or some compelling sense of justice or sometimes perhaps a semi-intuitive apprehension of the pervading spirit of our law must come to the rescue of the anxious judge and tell him where to go.
More Benjamin Cardozo Quotes
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Membership in the bar is a privilege burdened with conditions.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
Every human being of adult years and sound mind has a legal right to determine what shall be done with his own body.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
Rest and motion, unrelieved and unchecked, are equally destructive.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
There is in each of us a stream of tendency, whether you choose to call it philosophy or not, which gives coherence and direction to thought and action. Judges cannot escape that current any more than other mortals.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
The heroic hours of life do not announce their presence by drum and trumpet.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
History or custom or social utility or some compelling sense of justice or sometimes perhaps a semi-intuitive apprehension of the pervading spirit of our law must come to the rescue of the anxious judge and tell him where to go.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
The great ideals of liberty and equality are preserved against the assaults of opportunism, the expediency of the passing hour, the erosion of small encroachments, the scorn and derision of those who have no patience with general principles.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
Opinion has a significance proportioned to the sources that sustain it.
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In the end the great truth will have been learned that the quest is greater than what is sought, the effort finer that the prize (or rather, that the effort is the prize), the victory cheap and hollow were it not for the rigor of the game.
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Prophecy, however honest, is generally a poor substitute for experience.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
Justice is not to be taken by storm. She is to be wooed by slow advances.
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The risk to be percieved defines the duty to be obeyed.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
Due process is a growth too sturdy to succumb to the infection of the least ingredient of error.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
Code is followed by commentary, and commentary by revision, and thus the task is never done.
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Method is much, technique is much, but inspiration is even more.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO