“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.”

Inaction without more is not tantamount to choice.

The validity of a tax depends upon its nature, and not upon its name.

The difference is no less real because it is of degree.

Due process is a growth too sturdy to succumb to the infection of the least ingredient of error.

We seek to find peace of mind in the word, the formula, the ritual. The hope is illusion.

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.

Consequences cannot alter statutes, but may help to fix their meaning.

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.

Every human being of adult years and sound mind has a legal right to determine what shall be done with his own body.

The risk to be percieved defines the duty to be obeyed.

The great tides and currents which engulf the rest of men do not turn aside in their course and pass the judges by.

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

Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior.

Fraud includes the pretense of knowledge when knowledge there is none.

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.

Rest and motion, unrelieved and unchecked, are equally destructive.

When you observe yourself you must not condemn or approve what you see. If you tell a lie there is no need to judge your-self.

There is as yet no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from legislative power and the executrix

Before then, Britain was pessimistic and the role of government was largely managing Britain in decline.

If George Washington crossing the Delaware matters, so must his ruthless pursuit of the runagate Oney Judge.

People tend to judge presidents on how the economy performs, and yet we don’t expect them to have the power to do much about it. Or we don’t want them to exercise that power, if they were to have it.

I am going to judge my circumstances by Jesus’ love, not Jesus’ love by my circumstances.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.

No longer are there immutable standards by which to judge ourselves. Image has overtaken reality.