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.

Benjamin Cardozo

Categorized in : Joy Doe Distance

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.

Benjamin Cardozo

truth struggle games

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

Benjamin Cardozo

storm taken justice

Method is much, technique is much, but inspiration is even more.

Benjamin Cardozo

technique inspiration inspirational

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.

Benjamin Cardozo

erosion equality liberty

The Constitution was framed upon the theory that the peoples of the several states must sink or swim together, and that in the long run prosperity and salvation are in union and not division.

Benjamin Cardozo

swim running long

The judge is not the knight-errant, roaming at will in pursuit of his own ideal of beauty or of goodness.

Benjamin Cardozo

roaming knights judging

Law never is, but is always about to be.

Benjamin Cardozo

law

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.

Benjamin Cardozo

choices character blood

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.

Benjamin Cardozo

voice law years

The final cause of law is the welfare of society.

Benjamin Cardozo

competition finals law

As I search the archives of my memory I seem to discern six types or methods [of judicial writing] which divide themselves from one another with measurable distinctness. There is the type magisterial or imperative; the type laconic or sententious; the type conversational or homely; the type refined or artificial, smelling of the lamp, verging at times upon preciosity or euphuism; the demonstrative or persuasive; and finally the type tonsorial or agglutinative, so called from the shears and the pastepot which are its implements and emblem.

Benjamin Cardozo

writing memories past

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.

Benjamin Cardozo

taken decision justice

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

Benjamin Cardozo

illuminating past

Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.

Benjamin Cardozo

form freedom expression

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

Benjamin Cardozo

pretense fraud

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

Benjamin Cardozo

heroic trumpets hours

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

Benjamin Cardozo

finding-peace illusion mind

There are vogues and fashions in jurisprudence as in literature and art and dress.

Benjamin Cardozo

fashion dresses art

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.

Benjamin Cardozo

fairness balance justice

The great tides and currents which engulf the rest of men do not turn aside in their course and pass the judges by.

Benjamin Cardozo

tides judging men