The law, being an inherited accumulation, imposes itself on… - Learned Hand

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The law, being an inherited accumulation, imposes itself on each generation willy-nilly. Any society whose members enter and leave it severally must for very convenience, to say nothing of deeper reasons, proceed by tradition; the neophyte must adopt existing habits and ways of acting, if for no better reason, through inexperience and diffidence. Mere custom will do the rest as he proceeds. And so the rule is canonized, its origins, and therefore its meaning, are ignored. But genuine learning is quite different.

Learned Hand

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About Learned Hand

Billings Learned Hand (27 January 1872 – 18 August 1961), usually called simply Learned Hand, was an American judge and judicial philosopher. He served on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and later the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He was famous as an avid supporter of free speech and for applying economic reasoning to American tort law. He is noted as one of the most influential American judges to have never served on the Supreme Court of the United States.

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Birth Name: Billings Learned Hand

Alternative Names: Judge Learned Hand

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Oliver Wendell Holmes Edmund Burke Thomas Jefferson Robert H. Jackson Adlai Stevenson II

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Heretics have been hated from the beginning of recorded time; they have been ostracized, exiled, tortured, maimed, and butchered; but it has generally proved impossible to smother them; and when it has not, the society that has succeeded has always declined.

With the courage which only comes of justified self-confidence, he dared to rest his case upon its strongest point, and so avoided that appearance of weakness and uncertainty which comes of a clutter of arguments. Few lawyers are willing to do this; it is the mark of the most distinguished talent.

I shall ask no more than that you agree with Dean Inge that even though counting heads is not an ideal way to govern, at least it is better than breaking them.

The law, being an inherited accumulation, imposes itself on each generation willy-nilly. Any society whose members enter and leave it severally must … - Learned Hand

About Learned Hand

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