The difference is no less real because it is of degree.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOThe difference is no less real because it is of degree.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOThe prophet and the martyr do not see the hooting throng. Their eyes are fixed on the eternities.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOThere 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 CARDOZODue process is a growth too sturdy to succumb to the infection of the least ingredient of error.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOThe constant assumption runs throughout the law that the natural and spontaneous evolutions of habit fix the limits of right and wrong.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOWe seek to find peace of mind in the word, the formula, the ritual. The hope is illusion.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOI take judge-made law as one of the existing realities of life.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOWith 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 CARDOZOConsequences cannot alter statutes, but may help to fix their meaning.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOIn 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 CARDOZORest and motion, unrelieved and unchecked, are equally destructive.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOProphecy, however honest, is generally a poor substitute for experience.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOThe 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 CARDOZOThe final cause of law is the welfare of society.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOJustice 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 CARDOZOFreedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO