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 CARDOZOJustice is not to be taken by storm. She is to be wooed by slow advances.
More Benjamin Cardozo Quotes
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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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Code is followed by commentary, and commentary by revision, and thus the task is never done.
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Inaction without more is not tantamount to choice.
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Consequences cannot alter statutes, but may help to fix their meaning.
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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 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.
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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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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 validity of a tax depends upon its nature, and not upon its name.
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The final cause of law is the welfare of society.
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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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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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Due process is a growth too sturdy to succumb to the infection of the least ingredient of error.
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Law never is, but is always about to be.
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We seek to find peace of mind in the word, the formula, the ritual. The hope is illusion.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO







