Daily Inspiration Quote by George Jessel

A judge reaching for a kitchen implement is never just being cute; it is law’s way of puncturing pretension. When George Jessel likens the plaintiff’s case to a colander "so full of holes", he’s doing more than delivering a memorable put-down. He’s signaling, in a single image, that the claim fails the most basic test of legal coherence: it can’t hold water. The metaphor is tactile and domestic, which matters. Courts trade in abstractions - duties, causation, reasonableness - but Jessel drags the argument back to the everyday, where weakness is obvious and embarrassing. You don’t need a law degree to understand that a colander is designed to lose what you pour into it.

The specific intent is rhetorical efficiency with a sting: to persuade any reader of the judgment (including higher courts) that the defects aren’t technicalities but structural. The subtext is disciplinary. Jessel is reminding lawyers that narrative swagger or moral indignation can’t substitute for evidence and logic; if your case depends on assumptions, gaps, or contradictions, the court will treat it as porous by design.

Contextually, this sits squarely in a Victorian legal culture that prized authority and clarity, and where a judge’s wit functioned as a tool of institutional control. A sharply turned phrase becomes a warning label: bring the court something that holds together, or expect to be remembered for leaking.