Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
We accept the verdict of the past until the need for change cries out loudly enough to force upon us a choice between the comforts of inertia and the irksomeness of action.
Learned Hand
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Learned Hand
Age: 89 †
Born: 1872
Born: January 27
Died: 1961
Died: August 18
Judge
Lawyer
Philosopher
Albany
New York
Billings Learned Hand
Upon
Inertia
Force
Cries
Action
Cry
Past
Accept
Change
Comfort
Need
Choice
Loudly
Enough
Accepting
Verdict
Needs
Choices
Comforts
More quotes by Learned Hand
The mutual confidence on which all else depends can be maintained only by an open mind and a brave reliance upon free discussion.
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 such accommodation concretely.
Learned Hand
The apathy of the modern voter is the confusion of the modern reformer.
Learned Hand
There is no surer way to misread any document than to read it literally.
Learned Hand
In america, there are two tax systems: one for the informed and one for the uninformed. Both are legal
Learned Hand
We recently had a referendum in New York about extending the forest preserve. The city voted for it by a large majority yet as I walk the streets I do not see afforestation written with conviction on the harried faces of my fellow citizens.
Learned Hand
It is of course true that any kind of judicial legislation is objectionable on the score of the limited interests which a Court can represent, yet there are wrongs which in fact legislatures cannot be brought to take an interest in, at least not until the Courts have acted.
Learned Hand
Life in a great society, or for that matter in a small, is a web of tangled relations of all sorts, whose adjustment so that it may be endurable is an extraordinarily troublesome matter.
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
If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: thou shalt not ration justice.
Learned Hand
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.
Learned Hand
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.
Learned Hand
Those of us who have come to years of discretion and more, must often take to retrospect, and seek to appraise the outcome of our lives.
Learned Hand
The hand that rules the press, the radio, the screen and the far-spread magazine, rules the country.
Learned Hand
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.
Learned Hand
No doubt one may quote history to support any cause, as the devil quotes the scripture.
Learned Hand
Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.
Learned Hand
There is nothing sinister in so arranging one's affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible.
Learned Hand
Since we are men, we will play the part of Man.
Learned Hand
As soon as we cease to pry about at random, we shall come to rely upon accredited bodies of authoritative dogma and as soon as we come to rely upon accredited bodies of authoritative dogma, not only are the days of our liberty over, but we have lost the password that has hitherto opened to us the gates of success as well.
Learned Hand