In truth, I am nothing but a plodding mediocrity – please observe, a plodding mediocrity – for a mere mediocrity does not go very far, but a plodding one gets quite a distance. There is joy in that success, and a distinction can come from courage, fidelity and industry.
BENJAMIN CARDOZONo judicial system could do society’s work if each issue had to be decided afresh in every case which raised it.
More Benjamin Cardozo Quotes
-
-
Due process is a growth too sturdy to succumb to the infection of the least ingredient of error.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
The judge is not the knight-errant, roaming at will in pursuit of his own ideal of beauty or of goodness.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
Law never is, but is always about to be.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
Danger invites rescue. … The wrongdoer may not have foreseen the coming of a deliverer. He is accountable as if he had.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
The final cause of law is the welfare of society.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
The risk to be percieved defines the duty to be obeyed.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
Rest and motion, unrelieved and unchecked, are equally destructive.
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 -
We seek to find peace of mind in the word, the formula, the ritual. The hope is illusion.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
The Constitution was framed upon the theory that the peoples of the several states must sink or swim together, and that in the long run prosperity and salvation are in union and not division.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
The validity of a tax depends upon its nature, and not upon its name.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
With traps and obstacles and hazards confronting us on every hand, only blindness or indifference will fail to turn in all humility, for guidance or for warning, to the study of examples.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
Inaction without more is not tantamount to choice.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
Justice is not to be taken by storm. She is to be wooed by slow advances. Substitute statute for decision, and you shift the center of authority, but add no quota of inspired wisdom.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
Prophecy, however honest, is generally a poor substitute for experience.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO