Benjamin Cardozo

The great generalities of the constitution have a content and a significance that vary from age to age.

— Benjamin Cardozo

It is for ordinary minds, not for psychoanalysts, that our rules of evidence are framed. They have their source very often in…

— Benjamin Cardozo

Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior.

— Benjamin Cardozo

Every human being of adult years and sound mind has a legal right to determine what shall be done with his own…

— Benjamin Cardozo

Law never is, but is always about to be.

— Benjamin Cardozo

The heroic hours of life do not announce their presence by drum and trumpet.

— Benjamin Cardozo

Method is much, technique is much, but inspiration is even more.

— Benjamin Cardozo

In the end the great truth will have been learned that the quest is greater than what is sought, the effort finer…

— Benjamin Cardozo

The great tides and currents which engulf the rest of men do not turn aside in their course and pass the judges…

— Benjamin Cardozo

The heroic hours of life do not announce their presence by drum and trumpet, challenging us to be true to ourselves by…

— Benjamin Cardozo

Expediency may tip the scales when arguments are nicely balanced.

— Benjamin Cardozo

The prophet and the martyr do not see the hooting throng. Their eyes are fixed on the eternities.

— Benjamin Cardozo

The validity of a tax depends upon its nature, and not upon its name.

— Benjamin Cardozo

Rest and motion, unrelieved and unchecked, are equally destructive.

— Benjamin Cardozo

Justice, though due to the accused, is due the accuser also. The concept of fairness cannot be strained till it is narrowed…

— Benjamin Cardozo

The difference is no less real because it is of degree.

— Benjamin Cardozo

More truly characteristic of dissent is a dignity, an elevation, of mood and thought and phrase. Deep conviction and warm feeling are…

— Benjamin Cardozo

Justice is not to be taken by storm. She is to be wooed by slow advances.

— Benjamin Cardozo

Consequences cannot alter statutes, but may help to fix their meaning.

— Benjamin Cardozo

What has once been settled by a precedent will not be unsettled overnight, for certainty and uniformity are gains not lightly sacrificed.…

— Benjamin Cardozo

Membership in the bar is a privilege burdened with conditions.

— Benjamin Cardozo

Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.

— Benjamin Cardozo

I take judge-made law as one of the existing realities of life.

— Benjamin Cardozo

No judicial system could do society's work if each issue had to be decided afresh in every case which raised it.

— Benjamin Cardozo

Inaction without more is not tantamount to choice.

— Benjamin Cardozo