The common law is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky, but the articulate voice of some sovereign or quasi sovereign that can be identified; although some decisions with which I have disagreed seem to me to have forgotten the fact.
Whatever disagreement there may be as to the scope of the phrase "due process of law" there can be no doubt that it embraces the fundamental conception of a fair trial, with opportunity to be heard.
It is perfectly easy to be original by violating the laws of decency and the canons of good taste.
But the word "right" is one of the most deceptive of pitfalls; it is so easy to slip from a qualified meaning in the premise to an unqualified one in the conclusion. Most rights are qualified.
The thing I want to do is put as many new ideas into the law as I can, to show how particular solutions involve general theory, and to do it with style. I should like to be admitted to be the greatest jurist in the world.
The history of what the law has been is necessary to the knowledge of what the law is.
Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke.
Pretty much all law consists in forbidding men to do something that they want to do.
The law is the witness and external deposit of our moral life. Its history is the history of the moral development of the race.
The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.
This is a court of law, not a court of justice.
If you can eat sawdust without butter, you can be a success in the law.