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The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understands the minds of other men and women.

Learned Hand

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Learned Hand
Age: 89 †
Born: 1872
Born: January 27
Died: 1961
Died: August 18
Judge
Lawyer
Philosopher
Albany
New York
Billings Learned Hand
Freedom
Spirit
Women
Right
Seeks
Mind
Understands
Men
Minds
Liberty
Sure

More quotes by Learned Hand

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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.
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Right knows no boundaries, and justice no frontiers the brotherhood of man is not a domestic institution.
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Words are chameleons, which reflect the color of their environment.
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The public needs the equivalent of Chevrolets as well as Cadillacs.
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The mutual confidence on which all else depends can be maintained only by an open mind and a brave reliance upon free discussion.
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Since we are men, we will play the part of Man.
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A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few.
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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.
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You cannot raise the standard against oppression, or leap into the breach to relieve injustice, and still keep an open mind to every disconcerting fact, or an open ear to the cold voice of doubt.
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Words are not pebbles in alien juxtaposition.
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We all have our prayer-wheels which we set up on the steppes. The indifferent winds come and carry most of them away to gasp out their little lives in the desert, for few reach heaven.
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The condition of our survival in any but the meagerest existence is our willingness to accommodate ourselves to the conflicting interests of others, to learn to live in a social world.
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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.
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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.
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Skepticism is my only gospel, but I don't want to make a dogma out of it.
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The hand that rules the press, the radio, the screen and the far-spread magazine, rules the country.
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If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: thou shalt not ration justice.
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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.
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Our common law is the stock instance of a combination of custom and its successive adaptations.
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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.
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