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Great cases like hard cases make bad law. For great cases are called great, not by reason of their importance in shaping the law of the future, but because of some accident of immediate overwhelming interest which appeals to the feelings and distorts the judgement.

— Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

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More quotes by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.

The Path of the Law (1897)

State interference is an evil, where it cannot be shown to be a good.

Nature has but one judgment on wrong conduct — if you can call that a judgment which seemingly has no reference to conduct as such — the judgment of death.

The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.

The power to tax is not the power to destroy while this Court sits.

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