black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

No judicial system could do society’s work if each issue had to be decided afresh in every case which raised it.

Benjamin Cardozo

I take judge-made law as one of the existing realities of life.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Judging Law Reality
It is for ordinary minds, not for psychoanalysts, that our rules of evidence are framed. They have their source very often in considerations of administrative convenience, or practical expediency, and not in rules of logic.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Justice Mind Ordinary
There are vogues and fashions in jurisprudence as in literature and art and dress.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Art Dresses Fashion
No judicial system could do society’s work if each issue had to be decided afresh in every case which raised it.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Issue Judicial Raise Sysdtem
Due process is a growth too sturdy to succumb to the infection of the least ingredient of error.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Errors Growth Ingredient
The risk to be percieved defines the duty to be obeyed.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Duty Obeyed Perceived Risk
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

Equality Erosion Liberty
We seek to find peace of mind in the word, the formula, the ritual. The hope is illusion.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Finding Illusion Mind Peace
The difference is no less real because it is of degree.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Degrees Differences Real
Rest and motion, unrelieved and unchecked, are equally destructive.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Destructive Unchecked Unrelieved
Danger invites rescue. … The wrongdoer may not have foreseen the coming of a deliverer. He is accountable as if he had.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Danger May Rescue
Inaction without more is not tantamount to choice.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Choices Inaction
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

Judging Justice Law
Justice is not to be taken by storm. She is to be wooed by slow advances.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Justice Storm Taken
The final cause of law is the welfare of society.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Competition Finals Law
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

Confidence Giving Judging Philosophy

No judicial system could do society’s work if each issue had to be decided afresh in every case which raised it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

No judicial system could do society’s work if each issue had to be decided afresh in every case which raised it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Benjamin Cardozo Quotes