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Seldom, if ever, does wisdom come, shall we punish it if it comes late?

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
Wisdom
Comes
Doe
Ever
Come
Punish
Seldom
Late
Shall

More quotes by Learned Hand

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It is still in the lap of the gods whether a society can succeed which is based on civil liberties and human rights conceived as I have tried to describe them but of one thing at least we may be sure: the alternatives that have so far appeared have been immeasurably worse.
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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.
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For, when all is said, as my friend George Rublee likes to put it, the only success is to be a success as a person and it is still not too late for that.
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There is no surer way to misread any document than to read it literally.
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Words are chameleons, which reflect the color of their environment.
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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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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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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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Our common law is the stock instance of a combination of custom and its successive adaptations.
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The language of the law must not be foreign to the ears of those who are to obey it.
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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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In america, there are two tax systems: one for the informed and one for the uninformed. Both are legal
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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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The public needs the equivalent of Chevrolets as well as Cadillacs.
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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.
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No doubt one may quote history to support any cause, as the devil quotes the scripture.
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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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No doubt one may quote history to support any cause, as the devil quotes scripture but modern history is not a very satisfactory side-arm in political polemics it grows less and less so.
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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.
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.
Learned Hand