Quotes by Benjamin N. Cardozo

“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 s...”

“In law, as in every other branch of knowledge, the truths given by induction tend to form the premises for new deductions. The lawyers and the judges of successive generations do not repeat for the...”

“A trustee is held to something stricter than the morals of the market place. Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior.”

“We are what we believe we are.”

“There is an accuracy that defeats itself by the overemphasis of details. I often say that one must permit oneself and quite advisedly and deliberately a certain margin of misstatement.”

“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...”

“Membership in the bar is a privilege burdened with conditions.”

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

“The defendant styles herself a creator of fashions. Her favor helps a sale. Manufacturers of dresses, millinery and like articles are glad to pay for a certificate of her approval. The things which...”

“The law has outgrown its primitive stage of formalism when the precise word was the sovereign talisman, and every slip was fatal. It takes a broader view to-day. A promise may be lacking, and yet t...”

“Danger invites rescue. … The wrongdoer may not have foreseen the coming of a deliverer. He is accountable as if he had.”

“Fulfillment may fall short of expectation. At least there has been gained a foothold from which occasion can be seized.”

“Inaction without more is not tantamount to choice.”

“The whole problem of the relation between parent and subsidiary corporations is one that is still enveloped in the mists of metaphor. Metaphors in law are to be narrowly watched, for starting as de...”

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

“Fraud includes the pretense of knowledge when knowledge there is none.”

“Expediency may tip the scales when arguments are nicely balanced.”

“Prophecy, however honest, is generally a poor substitute for experience.”

“Price security, we are told, is only a special form of sanitary security; the economic motive is secondary and subordinate; the state intervenes to make its inhabitants healthy, and not to make the...”

“Due process is a growth too sturdy to succumb to the infection of the least ingredient of error.”