Learned Hand Quotes (33 Quotes)


    I submit to you that we must press along. Borrowing from Epictetus, let us say to ourselves Since we are men, we will play the part of Man.

    Words are not pebbles in alien juxtaposition.

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

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

    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.


    With the courage which only comes of justified self-confidence, he dared to rest his case upon its strongest point, and so avoided that appearance of weakness and uncertainty which comes of a clutter of arguments. Few lawyers are willing to do this it is the mark of the most distinguished talent.

    I remember he loved the patent cases, ... He used to get the invention involved in the case, take it apart and put it together again. He enjoyed seeing how the apparatus worked. . . . He also enjoyed the admiralty cases. He loved to get models of ships and recreate the circumstances of a collision.

    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.


    While I should be the last to say that the making of a profit was not in itself a pleasure, I hope I should also be one of those to agree that there were other pleasures than making a profit

    They taught me, not by precept, but by example, that nothing is more commendable, and more fair, than that a man should lay aside all else, and seek truth not to preach what he might find and surely not to try to make his views prevail but, like Lessing, to find his satisfaction in the search itself.

    Yet with all the attraction that it has, our youth cannot long remain without feeling the narrowness of simply a classification of the world. Life is not a thing of knowing only - nay, mere knowledge has properly no place at all save as it becomes the handmaiden of feeling and emotion.

    (Common law) stands as a monument slowly raised, like a coral reef, from the minute accretions of past individuals, of whom each built upon the relics which his predecessors left, and in his turn left a foundation upon which his successors might work

    A self-made man may prefer a self-made name.

    Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.

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

    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.

    What seems fair enough against a squalid huckster of bad liquor may take on a different face, if used by government determined to suppress political opposition under the guise of sedition

    A wise man once said, Convention is like the shell to the chick, a protection till he is strong enough to break it through.

    My vote is one of the most unimportant acts of my life if I were to acquaint myself with the matters on which it ought really to depend, if I were to try to get a judgment on which I was willing to risk affairs of even the smallest moment, I should be doi

    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.

    Right knows no boundaries, and justice no frontiers; the brotherhood of man is not a domestic institution.

    I shall ask no more than that you agree with Dean Inge that even though counting heads is not an ideal way to govern, at least it is better than breaking them.

    Life is made up of constant calls to action, and we seldom have time for more than hastily contrived answers.

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

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

    There is no surer way to misread any document than to read it literally.


    It is enough that we set out to mold the motley stuff of life into some form of our own choosing; when we do, the performance is itself the wage.

    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.

    In the end it is worse to suppress dissent than to run the risk of heresy.

    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.

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


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