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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.

Benjamin Cardozo

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

Degrees Differences Real
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
Prophecy, however honest, is generally a poor substitute for experience.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Honest Poor Substitutes
The heroic hours of life do not announce their presence by drum and trumpet.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Heroic Hours Trumpet
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

Distance Doe Joy
Consequences cannot alter statutes, but may help to fix their meaning.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Helping May Statutes
The Constitution was framed upon the theory that the peoples of the several states must sink or swim together, and that in the long run prosperity and salvation are in union and not division.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Long Running Swim
Due process is a growth too sturdy to succumb to the infection of the least ingredient of error.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Errors Growth Ingredient
The final cause of law is the welfare of society.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Competition Finals Law
The validity of a tax depends upon its nature, and not upon its name.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Names Taxes Validity
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.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Equality Erosion Liberty
Fraud includes the pretense of knowledge when knowledge there is none.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Fraud Include Knowledge Pretense
Opinion has a significance proportioned to the sources that sustain it.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

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

Finding Illusion Mind Peace
I take judge-made law as one of the existing realities of life.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Judging Law Reality
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

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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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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Popular Authors

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