List of Learned Hand Quotes

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. I Am Satisfied That A Scholar Who Tries To Combine These Parts Sells His Birthright For A Mess Of Pottage; That, When The Final Count Is Made, It Will Be Found That The Impairment Of His Powers Far Outweighs Any Possible Contribution To The Causes He Has Espoused.

The Art Of Publicity Is A Black Art.

It Is Enough That We Set Out To Mold The Motley Stuff Of Life Into Some Form Of Our Own Choosing; When We Do, The Performance Is Itself The Wage.

Here I Am An Old Man In A Long Nightgown Making Muffled Noises At People Who May Be No Worse Than I Am.

Today In America Vast Concourses Of Youth Are Flocking To Our Colleges, Eager For Something, Just What They Do Not Know.

Those Of Us Who Have Come To Years Of Discretion And More, Must Often Take To Retrospect, And Seek To Appraise The Outcome Of Our Lives.

We Prate Of Freedom; We Are In Deadly Fear Of Life, As Much Of Our Own American Scene Betrays.

Our Common Law Is The Stock Instance Of A Combination Of Custom And Its Successive Adaptations.

We Recently Had A Referendum In New York About Extending The Forest Preserve. The City Voted For It By A Large Majority; Yet As I Walk The Streets I Do Not See Afforestation Written With Conviction On The Harried Faces Of My Fellow Citizens.

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.

The Public Needs The Equivalent Of Chevrolets As Well As Cadillacs.

Words Are Not Pebbles In Alien Juxtaposition.