Learned Hand Quotes

There is no fury like that against one who, we fear, may succeed in making us disloyal to beliefs we hold with passion, but have not really won.

The use of history is to tell us what we are, for at our birth we are nearly empty vessels and we become what our tradition pours into us.

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.

We lose the forest for the trees, forgetting, even so far as we think at all, that we are trustees for those who come after us, squandering the patrimony which we have received.

The condition of our survival in any but the meagerest existence is our willingness to accommodate ourselves to the conflicting interests of others, to learn to live in a social world.

The mutual confidence on which all else depends can be maintained only by an open mind and a brave reliance upon free discussion.

If a community decides that some conduct is prejudicial to itself, and so decides by numbers sufficient to impose its will upon dissenters, I know of no principle which can stay its hand.

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.

No doubt one may quote history to support any cause, as the devil quotes scripture.

The aim of law is the maximum gratification of the nervous system of man.

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.

There is nothing sinister in so arranging one's affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible.

We prate of freedom; we are in deadly fear of life, as much of our own American scene betrays.

Words are not pebbles in alien juxtaposition.

Our common law is the stock instance of a combination of custom and its successive adaptations.

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.

We shall succeed only so far as we continue that most distasteful of all activity, the intolerable labor of thought.

The public official must pick his way nicely, must learn to placate though not to yield too much, to have the art of honeyed words but not to seem neutral, and above all to keep constantly audible, visible, likable, even kissable.

Reputation, like a face, is the symbol of its possessor and creator, and another can use it only as a mask.

As soon as we cease to pry about at random, we shall come to rely upon accredited bodies of authoritative dogma; and as soon as we come to rely upon accredited bodies of authoritative dogma, not only are the days of our liberty over, but we have lost the password that has hitherto opened to us the gates of success as well.

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.

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.

Since we are men, we will play the part of Man.

What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. 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; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest.

Would we hold liberty, we must have charity- charity to others, charity to ourselves, crawling up from the moist ovens of a steaming world, still carrying the passional equipment of our ferocious ancestors, emerging from black superstition amid carnage and atrocity to our perilous present.

Convention is like the shell to the chick, a protection till he is strong enough to break it through.

Words are chameleons, which reflect the color of their environment.

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.

The profession of the law of which he [a judge] is a part is charged with the articulation and final incidence of the successive efforts towards justice; it must feel the circulation of the communal blood or it will wither and drop off, a useless member.

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.

Each one of us must in the end choose for himself how far he would like to leave our collective fate to the wayward vagaries of popular assemblies 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 I should miss the stimulus of living in a society where I have, at least theoretically, some part in the direction of public affairs.

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.

If we are to keep democracy, there must be a commandment: Thou shalt not ration justice.

Heretics have been hated from the beginning of recorded time; they have been ostracized, exiled, tortured, maimed, and butchered; but it has generally proved impossible to smother them; and when it has not, the society that has succeeded has always declined.

In america, there are two tax systems: one for the informed and one for the uninformed. Both are legal

Thou shalt not ration justice.

The legal relations between the individual and the community which arise out of the production and distribution of property, comprise by far the greater, and more important, part of the law; subtract these and very little content would be left.

All discussion, all debate, all dissidence tends to question and in consequence, to upset existing convictions; that is precisely its purpose and its justification.

Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase ones taxes.

We recently had a referendum in New York about extending the forest preserve. The city voted for it by a large majority; yet as I walk the streets I do not see afforestation written with conviction on the harried faces of my fellow citizens.

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.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit of him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned ...

Every smallest step of modern industry depends upon a cooperation whose maintenance and regulation is the very stuff of law.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.

The fathers who contrived and passed the Consititution were wise in their generation; as time passes, we come more and more to realize their powers of divination.

The successful competitor, having been urged to compete, must not be turned on when he wins.

Here I am an old man in a long nightgown making muffled noises at people who may be no worse than I am.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit that is not quite sure it is right.

How long shall we blunder along without the aid of unpartisan and authoritative scientific assistance in the administration of justice, no one knows; but all fair persons not conventionalized by provincial legal habits of mind ought, I should think, unite to effect some change.

Skepticism is my only gospel, but I don't want to make a dogma out of it.

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.

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.

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.

The art of publicity is a black art; but it has come to stay, and every year adds to its potency.

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.