Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.

For my part I think it is a less evil that some criminals should escape, than that the government should play an ignoble part.

The history of what the law has been is necessary to the knowledge of what the law is.

Nothing is so commonplace has the wish to be remarkable.

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.

Men are idolaters, and want something to look at and kiss and hug, or throw themselves down before; they always did, they always will; and if you don't make it of wood, you must make it of words.

I dare say that I have worked off my fundamental formula on you that the chief end of man is to frame general propositions and that no general proposition is worth a damn.