“We see what you are driving at, but you have not said it, and therefore we shall go on as before.”

— Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Johnson v. United States, 163 F. 30 (1st Cir. 1908) (Justice Holmes sitting by designation as a judge of the First Circuit).
1900s
Context: The major premise of the conclusion expressed in a statute, the change of policy that induces the enactment, may not be set out in terms, but it is not an adequate discharge of duty for courts to say: We see what you are driving at, but you have not said it, and therefore we shall go on as before.

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Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. 107

United States Supreme Court justice 1841–1935

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