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

Benjamin Cardozo

Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Expression Form Freedom
Due process is a growth too sturdy to succumb to the infection of the least ingredient of error.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Errors Growth Ingredient
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.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Balance Fairness Justice
The constant assumption runs throughout the law that the natural and spontaneous evolutions of habit fix the limits of right and wrong.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Law Limitation Running
We seek to find peace of mind in the word, the formula, the ritual. The hope is illusion.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Finding Illusion Mind Peace
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.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Decision Justice Taken
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.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Confidence Giving Judging Philosophy
Code is followed by commentary, and commentary by revision, and thus the task is never done.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Done Revision Tasks
The validity of a tax depends upon its nature, and not upon its name.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Names Taxes Validity
No judicial system could do society’s work if each issue had to be decided afresh in every case which raised it.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Issue Judicial Raise Sysdtem
History, in illuminating the past, illuminates the present, and in illuminating the present, illuminates the future.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Illuminating Past
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
Consequences cannot alter statutes, but may help to fix their meaning.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Helping May Statutes
I take judge-made law as one of the existing realities of life.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Judging Law Reality
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
Rest and motion, unrelieved and unchecked, are equally destructive.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Destructive Unchecked Unrelieved
Law never is, but is always about to be.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Always Law never
The heroic hours of life do not announce their presence by drum and trumpet.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Heroic Hours Trumpet
Membership in the bar is a privilege burdened with conditions.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Bars Membership Privilege
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
Fraud includes the pretense of knowledge when knowledge there is none.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Fraud Include Knowledge Pretense
Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Honesty Honor Sensitive
Prophecy, however honest, is generally a poor substitute for experience.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Honest Poor Substitutes
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.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Example Hands Humility
The great generalities of the constitution have a content and a significance that vary from age to age.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Age Constitution Significance
Justice is not to be taken by storm. She is to be wooed by slow advances.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Justice Storm Taken
Inaction without more is not tantamount to choice.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO

Choices Inaction

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

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

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