It is the daily; it is the small; it is the cumulative injuries of little people that we are here to protect....If we are able to keep our democracy, there must be once commandment: THOU SHALT NOT RATION JUSTICE.
Learned HandTyranny is tyranny, no matter what its form; the free man will resist it if his courage serves.
Learned HandConvention is like the shell to the chick, a protection till he is strong enough to break it through.
Learned HandReputation, like a face, is the symbol of its possessor and creator, and another can use it only as a mask.
Learned HandA society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few.
Learned HandThat community is already in the process of dissolution where each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where non-conformity with the accepted creed, political as well as religious, is a mark of disaffection; where denunciation, without specification or backing, takes the place of evidence; where orthodoxy chokes freedom of dissent; where faith in the eventual supremacy of reason has become so timid that we dare not enter our convictions in the open lists, to win or lose.
Learned Hand