Quotes by Learned Hand

About Learned Hand:

Billings Learned Hand was a United States judge and judicial philosopher. He served on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and later the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Hand has been quoted more often by legal scholars and by the Supreme Court of the United States than any other lower-court judge.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The art of publicity is a black art; but it has come to stay, and every year adds to its potency.

Learned Hand

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. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right;...

Learned Hand

If we are to keep democracy, there must be a commandment: Thou shalt not ration justice.

Learned Hand

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

A self-made man may prefer a self-made name.

Learned Hand

Thou shalt not ration justice.

Learned Hand

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

I shall ask no more than that you agree with Dean Inge that even though counting heads is not an ideal way to govern, at least it is better than breaking them.

Learned Hand

Right knows no boundaries, and justice no frontiers; the brotherhood of man is not a domestic institution.

Learned Hand

We may win when we lose, if we have done what we can; for by so doing we have made real at least some part of that finished product in whose fabrication we are most concerned: ourselves.

Learned Hand

In the end it is worse to suppress dissent than to run the risk of heresy.

Learned Hand

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.

Learned Hand

Words are not pebbles in alien juxtaposition.

Learned Hand

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

Learned Hand

The aim of law is the maximum gratification of the nervous system of man.

Learned Hand

What to an outsider will be no more than the vigorous presentation of a conviction, to an employee may be the manifestation of a determination which it is not safe to thwart.

Learned Hand

No doubt one may quote history to support any cause, as the devil quotes scripture.

Learned Hand

Life is made up of constant calls to action, and we seldom have time for more than hastily contrived answers.

Learned Hand

Life is made up of a series of judgments on insufficient data, and if we waited to run down all our doubts, it would flow past us.

Learned Hand

It is enough that we set out to mold the motley stuff of life into some form of our own choosing; when we do, the performance is itself the wage.

Learned Hand

Author Bio

  • NameLearned Hand
  • DescriptionAmerican legal scholar, Court of Appeals judge
  • BornJanuary 27, 1872
  • DiedAugust 18, 1961
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionJudge; Lawyer; Philosopher