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.
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.
More Benjamin Cardozo Quotes
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The final cause of law is the welfare of society.
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Method is much, technique is much, but inspiration is even more.
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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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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.
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I take judge-made law as one of the existing realities of life.
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Membership in the bar is a privilege burdened with conditions.
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The judge is not the knight-errant, roaming at will in pursuit of his own ideal of beauty or of goodness.
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Code is followed by commentary, and commentary by revision, and thus the task is never done.
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The heroic hours of life do not announce their presence by drum and trumpet.
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Law never is, but is always about to be.
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Consequences cannot alter statutes, but may help to fix their meaning.
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The constant assumption runs throughout the law that the natural and spontaneous evolutions of habit fix the limits of right and wrong.
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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.
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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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History, in illuminating the past, illuminates the present, and in illuminating the present, illuminates the future.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO