“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.”

Code is followed by commentary, and commentary by revision, and thus the task is never done.

Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior.

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

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.

Rest and motion, unrelieved and unchecked, are equally destructive.

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

Justice is not to be taken by storm. She is to be wooed by slow advances.

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.

The heroic hours of life do not announce their presence by drum and trumpet.

History, in illuminating the past, illuminates the present, and in illuminating the present, illuminates the future.

The judge is not the knight-errant, roaming at will in pursuit of his own ideal of beauty or of goodness.

Membership in the bar is a privilege burdened with conditions.

What has once been settled by a precedent will not be unsettled overnight, for certainty and uniformity are gains not lightly sacrificed. Above all is this true when honest men have shaped their conduct on the faith of the pronouncement.

Opinion has a significance proportioned to the sources that sustain it.

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.

Danger invites rescue. … The wrongdoer may not have foreseen the coming of a deliverer. He is accountable as if he had.

I said something idiotic like, as [William] Shakespeare says, “Action is eloquence,” and the judge just frowned at me and gave me a couple weeks in jail.

Your best changes from moment to moment, sick or well, tired or rested. Remember that you are an imperfect human being. There is no value to judging yourself for

The way I judge myself is not on how many World Cups I can win in a row.

If mob law is going to rule, better dismiss, judge, sheriff, etc., and let’s all take chances alike.

Whether a tops-down or bottoms-up investor in bonds, stocks, or private equity, the standard analysis tends to judge an investor or his firm on the basis of how the bullish or bearish aspects of the cycle were managed.

So you’re stuck. Every time your madman starts to write, your judge pounces on him… So start by promising your judge that you’ll get around to asking his opinion, but not now. And then let the madman energy flow… Save details for the judge.

Europe and America should judge Georgia’s leadership on the basis of their actions, not just their words and promises. Otherwise Saakashvili will transform Georgia into a dictatorship.

[On being a judge for the 1986 Booker Prize:] I got to the point where I couldn’t read a laundry list without considering it for the Booker Prize.