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Morals in Public Life (1951); Hand is here paraphrasing a famous expression of Oliver Cromwell from his letter of 3 August 1650 to the general assembly of the Church of Scotland.
Extra-judicial writings

“This is the most miserable of cases, but we must dispose of it as though it had been presented by actual lawyers.”

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Learned Hand

As quoted in Learned Hand : The Man and the Judge (1994) by Gerald Gunther.
Extra-judicial writings

“It is still in the lap of the gods whether a society can succeed which is based on "civil liberties and human rights" conceived as I have tried to describe them; but of one thing at least we may be sure: the alternatives that have so far appeared have been immeasurably worse.”

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Learned Hand

"A Fanfare for Prometheus" (29 January 1955).
Extra-judicial writings

“There is no surer way to misread any document than to read it literally. … As nearly as we can, we must put ourselves in the place of those who uttered the words, and try to divine how they would have dealt with the unforeseen situation; and, although their words are by far the most decisive evidence of what they would have done, they are by no means final.”

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Learned Hand

Giuseppe v. Walling (1944).
Judicial opinions

“How long shall we blunder along without the aid of unpartisan and authoritative scientific assistance in the administration of justice, no one knows; but all fair persons not conventionalized by provincial legal habits of mind ought, I should think, unite to effect some change.”

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Learned Hand

Parke, Davis & Co. v. H. K. Mulford Co. (1911).
Judicial opinions

“It is of course true that any kind of judicial legislation is objectionable on the score of the limited interests which a Court can represent, yet there are wrongs which in fact legislatures cannot be brought to take an interest in, at least not until the Courts have acted.”

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Learned Hand

Letter to Louis D. Brandeis, dated (22 January 1919).
Extra-judicial writings

“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.”

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Learned Hand

"In Memory of Charles Neave" (1938).
Extra-judicial writings

“Like John Stuart Mill, he would often begin by stating the other side better than its advocate had stated it himself.”

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Learned Hand

On Benjamin N. Cardozo in "Mr. Justice Cardozo" (1939); also in The Spirit of Liberty: Papers and Addresses (1952), p. 131.
Extra-judicial writings

“Most of my issues that mankind sets out to settle, it never does settle… The dispute fades into the past unsolved, though perhaps it may be renewed as history and fought over again. It disappears because it is replaced by some compromise that, although not wholly acceptable to either side, offers a tolerable substitute for victory…”

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Learned Hand

As quoted in The Modern Researcher, 3rd edition (1977) by Jacques Barzun and Henry Graff, p. 44.
Extra-judicial writings

“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.”

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Learned Hand

Address to Yale Law Graduates (1931); also in The Spirit of Liberty: Papers and Addresses (1952), p. 87.
Extra-judicial writings

“We like rather to dream of a body of young men as a live thing, as a tree where all the branches are nourished by a single sap, and where each part is meaningless and incomplete except in connection with its fellows. You may lop away the dead branches, you may bend the trunk, you may dig about it and water it; but leave it to assume its own form, do not constrain the peculiar roots, or you will have a crippled, gnarled monster, and no tree.”

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Learned Hand

"Class-Day Oration" (1893).
Extra-judicial writings

“For myself it would be most irksome to be ruled by a bevy of Platonic Guardians, even if I knew how to choose them, which I assuredly do not.”

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Learned Hand

The Bill of Rights (1958), p. 73.
Extra-judicial writings

“The public needs the equivalent of Chevrolets as well as Cadillacs.”

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Learned Hand

On the trends toward popular marketing of legal services, quoted in USA Today (2 February 1984).
Extra-judicial writings

“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.”

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Learned Hand

"Class-Day Oration" (1893).
Extra-judicial writings

“If the prosecution of crime is to be conducted with so little regard for that protection which centuries of English law have given to the individual, we are indeed at the dawn of a new era; and much that we have deemed vital to our liberties, is a delusion.”

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Learned Hand

United States v. Di Re (1947).
Judicial opinions

“I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that ye may be mistaken.”

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Learned Hand

I should like to have that written over the portals of every church, every school, and every courthouse, and, may I say, of every legislative body in the United States. I should like to have every court begin, "I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that we may be mistaken."

Morals in Public Life (1951); Hand is here paraphrasing a famous expression of Oliver Cromwell from his letter of 3 August 1650 to the general assembly of the Church of Scotland. Expanded upon in Establishment of a Commission on Ethics in Government, testimony before the United States Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare. Special Subcommittee on the Establishment of a Commission on Ethics in Government (1951), p. 218: I will give you an instance of what I mean, something he said that has always hung in my mind. It was just before the battle of Dunbar, where he beat the Scots, and that, as always, needed a very tough fight. (A marine whose name is Douglas will agree to that.) He wrote the Kirk before the fight, trying to get them to come to some reasonable composition: "I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that ye may be mistaken." I should like to have that written over the portal of every church, every school and every courthouse. May I say I should even add over the portal of every legislative room in the United States? I should like every court to begin: "I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that ye may be mistaken."
Extra-judicial writings

“We may not stop until we have done our part to fashion a world in which there shall be some share of fellowship; which shall be better than a den of thieves. Let us not disguise the difficulties; and, above all, let us not content ourselves with nobel aspirations, counsels of perfection, and self-righteous advice to others. We shall need the wisdom of the serpent; we shall have to be content with short steps; we shall be obliged to give and take; we shall face the strongest passions of mankind — our own not the least; and in the end we shall have fabricated an imperfect instrument. But we shall not wholly have failed; we shall have gone forward, if we bring to our task a pure and chastened spirit, patience, understanding, sympathy, forbearance, generosity, fortitude, and, above all, an inflexible determination. The history of man has just begun; in the aeons which lie before him lie limitless hope or limitless despair. The choice is his; the present choice is ours. It is worth the trial.”

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Learned Hand

"A Pledge of Allegiance" - speech for "I Am an American Day" Central Park, New York, New York. (20 May 1945) Hand credited H. G. Wells with inspiring some of the ideas expressed in this speech.
Extra-judicial writings