“Great cases like hard cases make bad law. For great cases are called great, not by reason of their importance in shaping the law of the future, but because of some accident of immediate overwhelming interest which appeals to the feelings and distorts the judgement.”

Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U.S. 197, 400-401 (1904).
1900s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Great cases like hard cases make bad law. For great cases are called great, not by reason of their importance in shapin…" by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.?
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. photo
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. 107
United States Supreme Court justice 1841–1935

Related quotes

John Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge photo

“It is far more important the law should be administered with absolute integrity, than that in this case or in that the law should be a good law or a bad one.”

John Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge (1820–1894) British lawyer, judge and Liberal politician

1 Cababe & Ellis' Q. B. D. Rep. 134.
Reg. v. Ramsey (1883)

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. photo
William Brett, 1st Viscount Esher photo

“Let us consider the reason of the case. For nothing is law that is not reason.”

John Powell (1645–1713) American Jesuit priest

Coggs vs. Bernard, Lord Raymond, 911, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Reason is the life of the law; nay, the common law itself is nothing else but reason... The law, which is perfection of reason", Edward Coke, First Institute.

Bernie Sanders photo
Whittaker Chambers photo
Ernest Flagg photo
Sir Francis Buller, 1st Baronet photo

“A casus omissus can in no case be supplied by a Court of law, for that would be to make laws.”

Sir Francis Buller, 1st Baronet (1746–1800) British judge

Jones v. Smart (1785), 1 T. R. 52.

Aristotle photo
William Scott, 1st Baron Stowell photo

“In the first place, it is not improper to observe, that the law of cases of necessity is not likely to be well furnished with precise rules; necessity creates the law, it supersedes rules; and whatever is reasonable and just in such cases, is likewise legal; it is not to be considered as matter of surprise, therefore, if much instituted rule is not to be found on such subjects.”

William Scott, 1st Baron Stowell (1745–1836) British politician

The Gratitudine (18 December 1801); as published in Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the High Court of Admiralty, Commencing with the Judgments of the Right Hon. Sir William Scott, Michaelmas Term, 1798, Vol. III (1802) http://books.google.com/books?id=-vcvAAAAYAAJ, p. 266.

Related topics