Benjamin Cardozo Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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

  Truth, Struggle, Games

  58 Copy quote

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

  Benjamin Cardozo

  Taken, Justice, Storm

  Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, Abraham Lawrence Sainer (1999). “Law is Justice: Notable Opinions of Mr. Justice Cardozo”, p.433, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

  59 Copy quote

• The final cause of law is the welfare of society.

  Benjamin Cardozo

  Law, Competition, Finals

  Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, Abraham Lawrence Sainer (1999). “Law is Justice: Notable Opinions of Mr. Justice Cardozo”, p.427, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

  24 Copy quote

• Method is much, technique is much, but inspiration is even more.

  Benjamin Cardozo

  Inspirational, Inspiration, Technique

  "Law and Literature and Other Essays and Addresses". Book by Benjamin N. Cardozo, 1931.

  54 Copy quote

• 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.

  Benjamin Cardozo

  Running, Long, Swim

  Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, Abraham Lawrence Sainer (1999). “Law is Justice: Notable Opinions of Mr. Justice Cardozo”, p.365, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

  34 Copy quote

• 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

  Justice, Balance, Fairness

  21 Copy quote

• Law never is, but is always about to be.

  Benjamin Cardozo

  Law

  Benjamin Nathan Cardozo (1922). “The Nature of the Judicial Process”, Yale University Press

  25 Copy quote

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

  Benjamin Cardozo

  Past, Illuminating

  24 Copy quote

• 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

  Dark, Years, Mind

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Equality, Erosion, Liberty

  34 Copy quote

• More truly characteristic of dissent is a dignity, an elevation, of mood and thought and phrase. Deep conviction and warm feeling are saying their last say with knowledge that the cause is lost. The voice of the majority may be that of force triumphant, content with the plaudits of the hour, and recking little of the morrow. The dissenter speaks to the future, and his voice is pitched to a key that will carry through the years.

  Benjamin Cardozo

  Years, Law, Voice

  21 Copy quote

• Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.

  Benjamin Cardozo

  Freedom, Expression, Form

  Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, Abraham Lawrence Sainer (1999). “Law is Justice: Notable Opinions of Mr. Justice Cardozo”, p.417, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

  24 Copy quote

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

  Benjamin Cardozo

  Knights, Judging, Roaming

  25 Copy quote

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

  Benjamin Cardozo

  Fraud, Pretense

  "Ultramares Corp. v. Touche, 255 N.Y. 170, 179, 174 N.E. 441, 444". 1931.

  13 Copy quote

• 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.

  Benjamin Cardozo

  Honesty, Men, Gains

  "The Paradoxes of Legal Science". Book by Benjamin N. Cardozo, 1928.

  15 Copy quote

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

  Benjamin Cardozo

  Heroic, Hours, Trumpets

  Benjamin Nathan Cardozo (1982). “Cardozo on the Law: Including the Nature of the Judicial Process, The Growth of the Law, The Paradoxes of Legal Science, Law and Literature”

  12 Copy quote

• The repetition of a catchword can hold analysis in fetters for fifty years or more.

  Benjamin Cardozo

  Years, Analysis, Fifty

  "Mr. Justice Holmes, 44 Harv. L. Rec. 682, 289". 1931.

  8 Copy quote

• Justice 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 Cardozo

  Taken, Justice, Decision

  Benjamin Nathan Cardozo (1982). “Cardozo on the Law: Including the Nature of the Judicial Process, The Growth of the Law, The Paradoxes of Legal Science, Law and Literature”

  22 Copy quote

• 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.

  Benjamin Cardozo

  Distance, Joy, Doe

  "Nine Old Men". Book by Drew Pearson and Robert Sharon Allen, 1936.

  18 Copy quote

• As I search the archives of my memory I seem to discern six types or methods [of judicial writing] which divide themselves from one another with measurable distinctness. There is the type magisterial or imperative; the type laconic or sententious; the type conversational or homely; the type refined or artificial, smelling of the lamp, verging at times upon preciosity or euphuism; the demonstrative or persuasive; and finally the type tonsorial or agglutinative, so called from the shears and the pastepot which are its implements and emblem.

  Benjamin Cardozo

  Memories, Writing, Past

  "Law and Literature and Other Essays and Addresses". Book by Benjamin N. Cardozo, 1931.

  60 Copy quote

• There are vogues and fashions in jurisprudence as in literature and art and dress.

  Benjamin Cardozo

  Fashion, Art, Dresses

  Benjamin N. Cardozo (2012). “The Nature of the Judicial Process”, p.54, Courier Corporation

  21 Copy quote

• 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.

  Benjamin Cardozo

  Character, Blood, Choices

  13 Copy quote

• Consequences cannot alter statutes, but may help to fix their meaning.

  Benjamin Cardozo

  May, Helping, Statutes

  "In re Rouss, 221 NY 81, 91". 1917.

  15 Copy quote

• Membership in the bar is a privilege burdened with conditions.

  Benjamin Cardozo

  Bars, Membership, Privilege

  Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, Abraham Lawrence Sainer (1999). “Law is Justice: Notable Opinions of Mr. Justice Cardozo”, p.191, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

  10 Copy quote

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

  Benjamin Cardozo

  Destructive

  Benjamin N. Cardozo (1924). “The Growth of the Law”, p.2, Yale University Press

  15 Copy quote

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