Benjamin Cardozo Law Quotations

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

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.

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

Law never is, but is always about to be.

More truly characteristic of dissent is a dignity, an elevation, of mood and thought and phrase. Deep conviction and warm feeling are saying their last say with knowledge that the cause is lost. The voice of the majority may be that of force triumphant, content with the plaudits of the hour, and recking little of the morrow. The dissenter speaks to the future, and his voice is pitched to a key that will carry through the years.

The final cause of law is the welfare of society.