black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Code is followed by commentary, and commentary by revision, and thus the task is never done.

Benjamin Cardozo

History, in illuminating the past, illuminates the present, and in illuminating the present, illuminates the future.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

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

Judging Law Reality
Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Honesty Honor Sensitive
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

Dark Mind Years
The judge is not the knight-errant, roaming at will in pursuit of his own ideal of beauty or of goodness.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Judging Knights Roaming
The final cause of law is the welfare of society.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Competition Finals Law
Due process is a growth too sturdy to succumb to the infection of the least ingredient of error.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Errors Growth Ingredient
Membership in the bar is a privilege burdened with conditions.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Bars Membership Privilege
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.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Games Struggle Truth
Law never is, but is always about to be.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Always Law never
The risk to be percieved defines the duty to be obeyed.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Duty Obeyed Perceived Risk
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
The great generalities of the constitution have a content and a significance that vary from age to age.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Age Constitution Significance
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
We seek to find peace of mind in the word, the formula, the ritual. The hope is illusion.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Finding Illusion Mind Peace
Inaction without more is not tantamount to choice.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Choices Inaction

Code is followed by commentary, and commentary by revision, and thus the task is never done.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Code is followed by commentary, and commentary by revision, and thus the task is never done.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Benjamin Cardozo Quotes