No judicial system could do society’s work if each issue had to be decided afresh in every case which raised it.
BENJAMIN CARDOZONot honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior.
More Benjamin Cardozo Quotes
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We seek to find peace of mind in the word, the formula, the ritual. The hope is illusion.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
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 CARDOZO -
Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
The judge is not the knight-errant, roaming at will in pursuit of his own ideal of beauty or of goodness.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
Law never is, but is always about to be.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
The validity of a tax depends upon its nature, and not upon its name.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
History, in illuminating the past, illuminates the present, and in illuminating the present, illuminates the future.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
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 -
Prophecy, however honest, is generally a poor substitute for experience.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
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 -
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 -
Consequences cannot alter statutes, but may help to fix their meaning.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO -
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 -
Opinion has a significance proportioned to the sources that sustain it.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO