Learned Hand

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

— Learned Hand

For myself it would be most irksome to be ruled by a bevy of Platonic Guardians, even if I knew how to…

— Learned Hand

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

— Learned Hand

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

— Learned Hand

Those of us who have come to years of discretion and more, must often take to retrospect, and seek to appraise the…

— Learned Hand

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

— Learned Hand

A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only…

— Learned Hand

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

— Learned Hand

The legal relations between the individual and the community which arise out of the production and distribution of property, comprise by far…

— Learned Hand

We accept the verdict of the past until the need for change cries out loudly enough to force upon us a choice…

— Learned Hand

It is the daily; it is the small; it is the cumulative injuries of little people that we are here to protect…If…

— Learned Hand

I shall ask no more than that you agree with Dean Inge that even though counting heads is not an ideal way…

— Learned Hand

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

— Learned Hand

There is something monstrous in commands couched in invented and unfamiliar language; an alien master is the worst of all. The language…

— Learned Hand

If a community decides that some conduct is prejudicial to itself, and so decides by numbers sufficient to impose its will upon…

— Learned Hand

The public official must pick his way nicely, must learn to placate though not to yield too much, to have the art…

— Learned Hand

The judge's authority depends upon the assumption that he speaks with the mouth of others. That is to say, the momentum of…

— Learned Hand

The lawyer must either learn to live more capaciously or be content to find himself continuously less trusted, more circumscribed, till he…

— Learned Hand

I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon law and upon courts. These are false…

— Learned Hand

'I beseech ye . . . , think that ye may be mistaken.' I should like to have that written over the…

— Learned Hand

It is often hard to secure unanimity about the borders of legislative power, but that is much easier than to decide how…

— Learned Hand

That community is already in the process of dissolution where each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where…

— Learned Hand

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

— Learned Hand

Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that…

— Learned Hand

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

— Learned Hand

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

— Learned Hand

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

— Learned Hand

The language of the law must not be foreign to the ears of those who are to obey it.

— Learned Hand

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

— Learned Hand

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

— Learned Hand

The hand that rules the press, the radio, the screen and the far-spread magazine, rules the country.

— Learned Hand

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

— Learned Hand

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

— Learned Hand

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

— Learned Hand

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

— Learned Hand

We shall succeed only so far as we continue to undertake “the intolerable labor of thought” — that most distasteful of all…

— Learned Hand

Justice is the tolerable accommodation of the conflicting interests of society, and I don't believe there is any royal road to attain…

— Learned Hand

The profession of the law of which he [a judge] is a part is charged with the articulation and final incidence of…

— Learned Hand

The mid-day sun is too much for most eyes; one is dazzled even with its reflection. Be careful that too broad and…

— Learned Hand

I had rather take my chance that some traitors will escape detection than spread abroad a spirit of general suspicion and distrust,…

— Learned Hand