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Benjamin N. Cardozo Quotes
1870–1938 United States
Benjamin Nathan Cardozo (24 May 1870 – 9 July 1938) was a long-time Justice of the Court of Appeals of New York, where his opinions included many declarations that would become famous in legal circles; he was appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1932.
United States Agnostics Judges Lawyers Also known as: Benjamin Cardozo, Cardozo, Benjamin, Cardozo, Benjamin N.
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Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.
Metaphors in law are to be narrowly watched, for starting as devices to liberate thought, they end often by enslaving it.
Prophecy, however honest, is generally a poor substitute for experience.
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.
Lecture at Yale University Law School (1923)
Fraud includes the pretense of knowledge when knowledge there is none.
Due process is a growth too sturdy to succumb to the infection of the least ingredient of error.
The repetition of a catchword can hold analysis in fetters for fifty years or more.
The law has outgrown its primitive stage of formalism when the precise word was the sovereign talisman, and every slip was fatal.
We may try to see things as objectively as we please. None the less, we can never see them with any eyes except our own.
The Nature of the Judicial Process (1921)
The great tides and currents which engulf the rest of men do not turn aside in their course and pass the judges by.
The Nature of the Judicial Process (1921)
Of that freedom [of thought and speech] one may say that it is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.
Law never is, but is always about to be.
The great generalities of the constitution have a content and a significance that vary from age to age.
The Nature of the Judicial Process (1921)
Bills of rights give assurance to the individual of the preservation of his liberty. They do not define the liberty they promise.
The Paradoxes of Legal Science (1928)
Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior.
Consequences cannot alter statutes, but may help to fix their meaning.
Expediency may tip the scales when arguments are nicely balanced.
Method is much, technique is much, but inspiration is even more.
Membership in the bar is a privilege burdened with conditions.
Inaction without more is not tantamount to choice.
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