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Quotes by Learned Hand

A self-made man may prefer a self-made name.
– Learned Hand
A wise man once said, Convention is like the shell to the chick, a protection till he is strong enough to break it through.
– Learned Hand
For, when all is said, as my friend George Rublee likes to put it, the only success is to be a success as a person; and it is still not too late for that.
– 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
I submit to you that we must press along. Borrowing from Epictetus, let us say to ourselves: Since we are men, we will play the part of Man.
– Learned Hand
If we are to keep democracy, there must be a commandment: Thou shalt not ration justice.
– Learned Hand
In the end it is worse to suppress dissent than to run the risk of heresy.
– Learned Hand
It lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it. While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it.
– Learned Hand
Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it.
– 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
Life is made up of constant calls to action, and we seldom have time for more than hastily contrived answers.
– Learned Hand
My vote is one of the most unimportant acts of my life; if I were to acquaint myself with the matters on which it ought really to depend, if I were to try to get a judgment on which I was willing to risk affairs of even the smallest moment, I should be doing nothing else, and that seems a fatuous conclusion to a fatuous undertaking.
– Learned Hand
No doubt one may quote history to support any cause, as the devil quotes scripture.
– Learned Hand
Right knows no boundaries, and justice no frontiers; the brotherhood of man is not a domestic institution.
– Learned Hand
The condition of our survival in any but the meagerest existence is our willingness to accommodate ourselves to the conflicting interests of others, to learn to live in a social world.
– 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
The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women.
– Learned Hand
They taught me, not by precept, but by example, that nothing is more commendable, and more fair, than that a man should lay aside all else, and seek truth; not to preach what he might find; and surely not to try to make his views prevail; but, like Lessing, to find his satisfaction in the search itself.
– 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
What seems fair enough against a squalid huckster of bad liquor may take on a different face, if used by government determined to suppress political opposition under the guise of sedition.
– Learned Hand
With the courage which only comes of justified self-confidence, he dared to rest his case upon its strongest point, and so avoided that appearance of weakness and uncertainty which comes of a clutter of arguments. Few lawyers are willing to do this; it is the mark of the most distinguished talent.
– Learned Hand
Yet with all the attraction that it has, our youth cannot long remain without feeling the narrowness of simply a classification of the world. Life is not a thing of knowing only - nay, mere knowledge has properly no place at all save as it becomes the handmaiden of feeling and emotion.
– 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
The hand that rules the press, the radio, the screen and the far-spread magazine, rules the country.
– Learned Hand