Learned Hand
Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.Collection: Women
Words are chameleons, which reflect the color of their environment.
In the end it is worse to suppress dissent than to run the risk of heresy.
What to an outsider will be no more than the vigorous presentation of a conviction, to an employee may be the manifestation of a determination which it is not safe to thwart.
Thou shalt not ration justice.
It lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it. While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it.
Words are not pebbles in alien juxtaposition.
The mid-day sun is too much for most eyes; one is dazzled even with its reflection. Be careful that too broad and high an aim does not paralyze your effort and clog your springs of action.
Life is made up of a series of judgments on insufficient data, and if we waited to run down all our doubts, it would flow past us.
The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.
The aim of law is the maximum gratification of the nervous system of man.
If we are to keep democracy, there must be a commandment: Thou shalt not ration justice.
It is enough that we set out to mold the motley stuff of life into some form of our own choosing; when we do, the performance is itself the wage.
We may win when we lose, if we have done what we can; for by so doing we have made real at least some part of that finished product in whose fabrication we are most concerned: ourselves.
You cannot raise the standard against oppression, or leap into the breach to relieve injustice, and still keep an open mind to every disconcerting fact, or an open ear to the cold voice of doubt.
The art of publicity is a black art; but it has come to stay, and every year adds to its potency.
Life is made up of constant calls to action, and we seldom have time for more than hastily contrived answers.
Right knows no boundaries, and justice no frontiers; the brotherhood of man is not a domestic institution.
I shall ask no more than that you agree with Dean Inge that even though counting heads is not an ideal way to govern, at least it is better than breaking them.
No doubt one may quote history to support any cause, as the devil quotes scripture.
A self-made man may prefer a self-made name.
Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands.Collection: Money
Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it ... The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias.Collection: Freedom
In america, there are two tax systems: one for the informed and one for the uninformed. Both are legalCollection: Two
I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon law and upon courts. These are false hopes, believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no courts to save it.Collection: Lying
That community is already in the process of dissolution where each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where non-conformity with the accepted creed, political as well as religious, is a mark of disaffection; where denunciation, without specification or backing, takes the place of evidence; where orthodoxy chokes freedom of dissent; where faith in the eventual supremacy of reason has become so timid that we dare not enter our convictions in the open lists, to win or lose.Collection: Religious
A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few.Collection: Men
It is the daily; it is the small; it is the cumulative injuries of little people that we are here to protect....If we are able to keep our democracy, there must be once commandment: THOU SHALT NOT RATION JUSTICE.Collection: People
The hand that rules the press, the radio, the screen and the far-spread magazine, rules the country.Collection: Country
"I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that ye may be mistaken." I should like to have that written over the portals of every church, every school, and every courthouse, and, may I say, of every legislative body in the United States. I should like to have every court begin, "I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that we may be mistaken."Collection: School
The language of the law must not be foreign to the ears of those who are to obey it.Collection: Law
We accept the verdict of the past until the need for change cries out loudly enough to force upon us a choice between the comforts of inertia and the irksomeness of action.Collection: Change
The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understands the minds of other men and women.Collection: Freedom
The successful competitor, having been urged to compete, must not be turned upon when he wins.Collection: Successful
There is no surer way to misread any document than to read it literally. As nearly as we can, we must put ourselves in the place of those who uttered the words, and try to divine how they would have dealt with the unforeseen situation; and, although their words are by far the most decisive evidence of what they would have done, they are by no means final.Collection: Mean
The apathy of the modern voter is the confusion of the modern reformer.Collection: Confusion
The spirit of liberty is the spirit that is not quite sure it is right.Collection: Freedom
If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: thou shalt not ration justice.Collection: Justice
Justice is the tolerable accommodation of the conflicting interests of society, and I don't believe there is any royal road to attain such accommodation concretely.Collection: Believe
What seems fair enough against a squalid huckster of bad liquor may take on a different face, if used by a government determined to suppress political opposition under the guise of sedition.Collection: Government
There is no surer way to misread any document than to read it literally.Collection: Inspirational
The mutual confidence on which all else depends can be maintained only by an open mind and a brave reliance upon free discussion.Collection: Brave
For, when all is said, as my friend George Rublee likes to put it, the only success is to be a success as a person; and it is still not too late for that.Collection: Too Late
The lawyer must either learn to live more capaciously or be content to find himself continuously less trusted, more circumscribed, till he becomes hardly more important than a minor administrator, confined to a monotonous round of record and routine, without dignity, inspiration, or respect.Collection: Inspiration
We all have our prayer-wheels which we set up on the steppes. The indifferent winds come and carry most of them away to gasp out their little lives in the desert, for few reach heaven.Collection: Prayer
Bipartisan democracy presupposes the individual, whose welfare is identical with that of the community in which he lives, the absence of coherent social classes, a basic uniformity of interest throughout.Collection: Class
For myself it would be most irksome to be ruled by a bevy of Platonic Guardians, even if I knew how to choose them, which I assuredly do not.Collection: Would Be
No doubt one may quote history to support any cause, as the devil quotes the scripture.Collection: Support
The public needs the equivalent of Chevrolets as well as Cadillacs.Collection: Needs
It is still in the lap of the gods whether a society can succeed which is based on "civil liberties and human rights" conceived as I have tried to describe them; but of one thing at least we may be sure: the alternatives that have so far appeared have been immeasurably worse.Collection: Rights