Learned Hand
Learned Hand
Billings Learned Handwas a United States judge and judicial philosopher. He served on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and later the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Hand has been quoted more often by legal scholars and by the Supreme Court of the United States than any other lower-court judge...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth27 January 1872
CountryUnited States of America
freedom liberty spirit
The spirit of liberty is the spirit that is not quite sure it is right.
believe mean venture
When I say that a thing is true, I mean that I cannot help believing it... But...I do not venture to assume that my inabilities in the way of thought are inabilities of the universe. I therefore define truth as the system of my limitations, and leave absolute truth for those who are better equipped.
wise father generations
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.
want dogma skepticism
Skepticism is my only gospel, but I don't want to make a dogma out of it.
impossible hated heretic
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.
spring eye reflection
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.
law regulation stuff
Every smallest step of modern industry depends upon a cooperation whose maintenance and regulation is the very stuff of law.
character past judging
The judge's authority depends upon the assumption that he speaks with the mouth of others. That is to say, the momentum of his utterances must be greater than any which his personal reputation and character can command, if it is to do the work assigned to it if it is to stand against the passionate resentments arising out of the interests he must frustrate for while a judge must discover some composition with the dominant trends of his times, he must preserve his authority by cloaking himself in the majesty of an overshadowing past.
law political ears
The language of the law must not be foreign to the ears of those who are to obey it.
reflection color environment
Words are chameleons, which reflect the color of their environment.
empty-vessels history use
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.
law community important
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.
justice democracy rations
If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: thou shalt not ration justice.
political support doubt
No doubt one may quote history to support any cause, as the devil quotes scripture; but modern history is not a very satisfactory side-arm in political polemics; it grows less and less so.