The young man knows the rules but the old man knows the exceptions. - Oliver Wendell Holmes

It is urged in the first place that contempts cannot be crimes, because, although punishable by imprisonment, and therefore, if crimes, infamous, they are not within the protection of the Constitution and the Amendments giving a right to trial by jury, etc., to persons charged with such crimes. But the provisions of the Constitution are not mathematical formulas having their essence in their form; they are organic, living institutions transplanted from English soil. Their significance is vital, not formal; it is to be gathered not simply by taking the words and a dictionary, but by considering their origin and the line of their growth.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
“Most of my time is spent in doing as well as I can the work immediately at hand. One hopes that by doing quietly and without parade as solid work as one can when one is occupied, one makes the best contribution possible to one's state.

if one of two or more joint wrongdoers has to pay all the damages, he cannot recover contribution from his fellows.