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
thinking justice long
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.
law justice common
Our common law is the stock instance of a combination of custom and its successive adaptations.
blood law justice
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.
justice democracy rations
If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: thou shalt not ration justice.
people justice democracy
It is the daily; it is the small; it is the cumulative injuries of little people that we are here to protect....If we are able to keep our democracy, there must be once commandment: THOU SHALT NOT RATION JUSTICE.
believe law-courts justice
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.
men brotherhood-of-man justice
Right knows no boundaries, and justice no frontiers; the brotherhood of man is not a domestic institution.
acts affairs conclusion judgment matters ought risk seems smallest vote willing
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 doing nothing else, and that seems a fatuous conclusion to a fatuous undertaking.
agree hope itself last pleasure pleasures profit
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
attraction becomes cannot feeling handmaiden knowing knowledge life mere properly remain save simply youth
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.
appearance avoided case clutter confidence courage dared few justified lawyers mark rest strongest weakness willing
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.
built coral foundation law left might minute monument past relics slowly stands turn whom work
(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
aside example lay man might preach search seek surely taught views
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.
break man protection shell strong till wise
A wise man once said, "Convention is like the shell to the chick, a protection till he is strong enough to break it through.