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Famous quotes by Jurists

JuristsExplore the voices of jurists whose work shapes how societies understand law, rights, and responsibility. From courtrooms to classrooms, their reflections illuminate interpretation, precedent, fairness, and the human stakes behind legal reasoning. Spanning different eras and legal traditions, these perspectives offer clarity, caution, and challenge in equal measure, inviting readers to think critically about justice and the rule of law. Whether seeking insight, debate, or inspiration, the words of judges, scholars, and advocates reveal how legal thought touches everyday life.
"A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"A child's education should begin at least one hundred years before he is born"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"It seems to me that at this time we need education in the obvious more than the investigation of the obscure"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"Nothing is so commonplace has the wish to be remarkable"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"A man is usually more careful of his money than of his principles"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"Man's mind, stretched by a new idea, never goes back to its original dimensions"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"The great act of faith is when a man decides he is not God"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"Beware how you take away hope from any human being"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"The only prize much cared for by the powerful is power"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"The greatest act of faith is when a man understands he is not God"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at the touch, nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"I despise making the most of one's time. Half of the pleasures of life consist of the opportunities one has neglected"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"A new and valid idea is worth more than a regiment and fewer men can furnish the former than command the latter"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"Men must turn square corners when they deal with the Government"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have had enough of it"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"Don't be 'consistent,' but be simply true"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"Carve every word before you let it fall"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"Most of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that our fathers have done them or our neighbors do them, and the same is true of a larger part than what we suspect of what we think"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"On the whole, I am on the side of the unregenerate who affirms the worth of life as an end in itself, as against the saints who deny it"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"Life is action and passion; therefore, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of the time, at peril of being judged not to have lived"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"As life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time, at the peril of being not to have lived"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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"Young man, the secret of my success is that an early age I discovered that I was not God"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Jurist
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