Prophecy, however honest, is generally a poor substitute for experience.
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
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Rest and motion, unrelieved and unchecked, are equally destructive.
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There are vogues and fashions in jurisprudence as in literature and art and dress.
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What has once been settled by a precedent will not be unsettled overnight, for certainty and uniformity are gains not lightly sacrificed. Above all is this true when honest men have shaped their conduct on the faith of the pronouncement.
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The validity of a tax depends upon its nature, and not upon its name.
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Fraud includes the pretense of knowledge when knowledge there is none.
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The heroic hours of life do not announce their presence by drum and trumpet.
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Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.
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The difference is no less real because it is of degree.
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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.
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The constant assumption runs throughout the law that the natural and spontaneous evolutions of habit fix the limits of right and wrong.
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The final cause of law is the welfare of society.
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I take judge-made law as one of the existing realities of life.
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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.
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Membership in the bar is a privilege burdened with conditions.
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Justice is not to be taken by storm. She is to be wooed by slow advances.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO