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The judicial process is one of compromise, a compromise between paradoxes, between certainty and uncertainty, between the literalism that is the exaltation of the written word and the nihilism that is destructive of regularity and order.

— Benjamin N. Cardozo

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More quotes by Benjamin N. Cardozo

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.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Benjamin N. Cardozo (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.