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Benjamin Cardozo Biography

Benjamin Cardozo

Benjamin Nathan Cardozo (May 24, 1870 – July 9, 1938) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Previously, he had served as the Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals. Cardozo is remembered for his significant influence on the development of American common law in the 20th century, in addition to his philosophy and vivid prose style.

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Benjamin Cardozo Quotes

Opinion has a significance proportioned to the sources that sustain it.

Opinion, Proportioned, Significance, Source, Sources

In truth, I am nothing but a plodding mediocrity — please observe, a plodding mediocrity — for a mere mediocrity does not go very far, but a plodding one gets quite a distance. There is joy in that success, and a distinction can come from courage, fidelity and industry.

Distance, Doe, Industry, Joy, Nothing

The risk to be percieved defines the duty to be obeyed.

Duty, Obeyed, Percieved, Risk

The heroic hours of life do not announce their presence by drum and trumpet, challenging us to be true to ourselves by appeals to the martial spirit that keeps the blood at heat. Some little, unassuming, unobtrusive choice presents itself before us slyly and craftily, glib and insinuating, in the modest garb of innocence. . . . Then it is that you will be summoned to show the courage of adventurous youth.

Blood, Character, Choices, Spirit, True, Youth

History or custom or social utility or some compelling sense of justice or sometimes perhaps a semi-intuitive apprehension of the pervading spirit of our law must come to the rescue of the anxious judge and tell him where to go.

Compelling, Custom, Judging, Justice, Law, Spirit

The final cause of law is the welfare of society.

Competition, Final, Finals, Law, Welfare

It is for ordinary minds, not for psychoanalysts, that our rules of evidence are framed. They have their source very often in considerations of administrative convenience, or practical expediency, and not in rules of logic.

Considerations, Framed, Justice, Mind, Ordinary, Source

Justice is not to be taken by storm. She is to be wooed by slow advances. Substitute statute for decision, and you shift the center of authority, but add no quota of inspired wisdom.

Decision, Justice, Statute, Taken, Wisdom, Wooed

The great ideals of liberty and equality are preserved against the assaults of opportunism, the expediency of the passing hour, the erosion of small encroachments, the scorn and derision of those who have no patience with general principles.

Equality, Erosion, Liberty, Opportunism, Small

Consequences cannot alter statutes, but may help to fix their meaning.

Alter, Consequences, Helping, May, Meaning, Statutes

Justice is not to be taken by storm. She is to be wooed by slow advances.

Justice, Slow, Storm, Taken

The heroic hours of life do not announce their presence by drum and trumpet.

Announce, Drum, Heroic, Hours, Trumpet, Trumpets

Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior.

Behavior, Honesty, Honor, Punctilio, Sensitive

What has once been settled by a precedent will not be unsettled overnight, for certainty and uniformity are gains not lightly sacrificed. Above all is this true when honest men have shaped their conduct on the faith of the pronouncement.

Conduct, Gains, Honesty, Men, Shaped, True

History, in illuminating the past, illuminates the present, and in illuminating the present, illuminates the future.

Future, History, Illuminates, Illuminating, Past

I take judge-made law as one of the existing realities of life.

Existing, Judging, Law, Realities, Reality, Take

Justice, though due to the accused, is due the accuser also. The concept of fairness cannot be strained till it is narrowed to a filament. We are to keep our balance true.

Accuser, Balance, Fairness, Justice, True

The constant assumption runs throughout the law that the natural and spontaneous evolutions of habit fix the limits of right and wrong.

Evolutions, Law, Limits, Right, Running, Wrong

In the end the great truth will have been learned that the quest is greater than what is sought, the effort finer that the prize (or rather, that the effort is the prize), the victory cheap and hollow were it not for the rigor of the game.

Game, Games, Prize, Quest, Struggle, Truth

We seek to find peace of mind in the word, the formula, the ritual. The hope is illusion.

Finding Peace, Illusion, Mind, Peace, Seek

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