The great generalities of the constitution have a content and a significance that vary from age to age.
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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The prophet and the martyr do not see the hooting throng. Their eyes are fixed on the eternities.
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Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.
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Opinion has a significance proportioned to the sources that sustain it.
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What has once been settled by a precedent will not be unsettled overnight, for certainty and uniformity are gains not lightly sacrificed. Above all is this true when honest men have shaped their conduct on the faith of the pronouncement.
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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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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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Membership in the bar is a privilege burdened with conditions.
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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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Every human being of adult years and sound mind has a legal right to determine what shall be done with his own body.
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The final cause of law is the welfare of society.
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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.
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Code is followed by commentary, and commentary by revision, and thus the task is never done.
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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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The validity of a tax depends upon its nature, and not upon its name.
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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.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO