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 CARDOZOHistory, in illuminating the past, illuminates the present, and in illuminating the present, illuminates the future.
More Benjamin Cardozo Quotes
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The heroic hours of life do not announce their presence by drum and trumpet.
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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.
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History, in illuminating the past, illuminates the present, and in illuminating the present, illuminates the future.
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The great tides and currents which engulf the rest of men do not turn aside in their course and pass the judges by.
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Justice, though due to the accused, is due the accuser also. The concept of fairness cannot be strained till it is narrowed to a filament. We are to keep our balance true.
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Rest and motion, unrelieved and unchecked, are equally destructive.
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Danger invites rescue. … The wrongdoer may not have foreseen the coming of a deliverer. He is accountable as if he had.
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Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior.
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There are vogues and fashions in jurisprudence as in literature and art and dress.
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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.
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The difference is no less real because it is of degree.
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No judicial system could do society’s work if each issue had to be decided afresh in every case which raised it.
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Due process is a growth too sturdy to succumb to the infection of the least ingredient of error.
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Fraud includes the pretense of knowledge when knowledge there is none.
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Membership in the bar is a privilege burdened with conditions.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO