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It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV.

— Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

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Source, in full

associate justice, supreme court of Massachusetts, address delivered at the dedication of the new hall of Boston University School of Law, Boston, Massachusetts (January 8, 1897), Holmes, Address Delivered at the Dedication… (1897), p. 18.

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Justice

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.

All Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. quotes →

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Attribution

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.