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Conservative political opinion in America cleaves to the tradition of the judge as passive interpreter, believing that his absolute loyalty to authoritative law is the price of his immunity from political pressure and of the security of his tenure.

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
Pressure
Loyalty
Security
Absolutes
Cleaves
Opinion
Absolute
Authoritative
Law
Judge
Immunity
Political
Price
Tenure
America
Conservative
Interpreter
Believe
Tradition
Passive
Judging
Believing

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Since we are men, we will play the part of Man.
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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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Skepticism is my only gospel, but I don't want to make a dogma out of it.
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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.
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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 emotions.
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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.
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The public needs the equivalent of Chevrolets as well as Cadillacs.
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Reputation, like a face, is the symbol of its possessor and creator, and another can use it only as a mask.
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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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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.
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Words are chameleons, which reflect the color of their environment.
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The spirit of liberty is the spirit that is not quite sure it is right.
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Seldom, if ever, does wisdom come, shall we punish it if it comes late?
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In america, there are two tax systems: one for the informed and one for the uninformed. Both are legal
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A government of laws without men is as visionary as a government of men without laws.
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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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The hand that rules the press, the radio, the screen and the far-spread magazine, rules the country.
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