Quote

Words are chameleons, which reflect the color of their environment.

Learned Hand

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

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
Chameleon
Reflect
Reflection
Color
Environment
Words

More quotes by Learned Hand

Image
No doubt one may quote history to support any cause, as the devil quotes the scripture.
Learned Hand
Image
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
Image
If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: thou shalt not ration justice.
Learned Hand
Image
Reputation, like a face, is the symbol of its possessor and creator, and another can use it only as a mask.
Learned Hand
Image
Skepticism is my only gospel, but I don't want to make a dogma out of it.
Learned Hand
Image
The hand that rules the press, the radio, the screen and the far-spread magazine, rules the country.
Learned Hand
Image
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.
Learned Hand
Image
The spirit of liberty is the spirit that is not quite sure it is right.
Learned Hand
Image
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
Image
There is nothing sinister in so arranging one's affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible.
Learned Hand
Image
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
Image
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.
Learned Hand
Image
A government of laws without men is as visionary as a government of men without laws.
Learned Hand
Image
Bipartisan democracy presupposes the individual, whose welfare is identical with that of the community in which he lives, the absence of coherent social classes, a basic uniformity of interest throughout.
Learned Hand
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Words are not pebbles in alien juxtaposition.
Learned Hand
Image
There is no surer way to misread any document than to read it literally.
Learned Hand
Image
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
Image
In america, there are two tax systems: one for the informed and one for the uninformed. Both are legal
Learned Hand