Benjamin Cardozo Quotes
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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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Danger invites rescue. ... The wrongdoer may not have foreseen the coming of a deliverer. He is accountable as if he had.
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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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The final cause of law is the welfare of society.
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The Constitution was framed upon the theory that the peoples of the several states must sink or swim together, and that in the long run prosperity and salvation are in union and not division.
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The heroic hours of life do not announce their presence by drum and trumpet, challenging us to be true to ourselves by appeals to the martial spirit that keeps the blood at heat. Some little, unassuming, unobtrusive choice presents itself before us slyly and craftily, glib and insinuating, in the modest garb of innocence. . . . Then it is that you will be summoned to show the courage of adventurous youth.
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Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior.
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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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Every human being of adult years and sound mind has a legal right to determine what shall be done with his own body.
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Code is followed by commentary, and commentary by revision, and thus the task is never done.
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Consequences cannot alter statutes, but may help to fix their meaning.
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The risk to be perceived defines the duty to be obeyed.
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There are vogues and fashions in jurisprudence as in literature and art and dress.
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Expediency may tip the scales when arguments are nicely balanced.
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Membership in the bar is a privilege burdened with conditions.
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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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The prophet and the martyr do not see the hooting throng. Their eyes are fixed on the eternities.
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We seek to find peace of mind in the word, the formula, the ritual. The hope is illusion.
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History, in illuminating the past, illuminates the present, and in illuminating the present, illuminates the future.
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Fraud includes the pretense of knowledge when knowledge there is none.
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The great generalities of the constitution have a content and a significance that vary from age to age.
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I take judge-made law as one of the existing realities of life.