“I do not underrate the yearning for mechanical and formal tests.”
Pages 67 – 68
Other writings, The Growth of the Law (1924)
Context: I do not underrate the yearning for mechanical and formal tests. They are possible and useful in zones upon the legal sphere. The pain of choosing is the pain of marking off such zones from others. It is a pain we must endure, for uniformity of method will carry us upon the rocks. The curse of this fluidity, of an ever shifting approximation, is one the law must bear, or other curses yet more dreadful will be invited in exchange.
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Benjamin N. Cardozo 52
United States federal judge 1870–1938Related quotes

"Testing Quantum Mechanics" http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0003491689902765, Annals of Physics (1989)

Source: "Relevance of laboratory experiments to testing resource allocation theory," 1980, p. 346.

“Only do it if I can test her personally. That will not be something I enjoy doing either.”
regarding acknowledging Elizabeth Warren as Native American 2018-10-15 Trump promised $1 million to charity if Warren proved her Native American DNA. Now he’s waffling. Amy B Wang and Deanna Paul Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/10/15/trump-dared-elizabeth-warren-take-dna-test-prove-her-native-american-ancestry-now-what/
2010s, 2018, October

As quoted in The Greatest Team of All Time (1994), p. 121.

“Am I to refuse to eat because I do not fully understand the mechanism of digestion?”
Context: Mathematics is of two kinds, Rigorous and Physical. The former is Narrow: the latter Bold and Broad. To have to stop to formulate rigorous demonstrations would put a stop to most physico-mathematical inquiries. Am I to refuse to eat because I do not fully understand the mechanism of digestion?

The Captive Mind (1953)
Context: As long as a society's best minds were occupied by theological questions, it was possible to speak of a given religion as the way of thinking of the whole social organism. All the matters which most actively concerned the people were referred to it and discussed in its terms. But that belongs to a dying era. We have come by easy stages to a lack of a common system of thought that could unite the peasant cutting his hay, the student poring over formal logic, and the mechanic working in an automobile factory. Out of this lack arises the painful sense of detachment or abstraction that oppresses the "creators of culture."

“Whatever I intend to do, I shall test it first on My own family.”
The Life of Oyasama, Foundress of Tenrikyo, p. 28
The Life of Oyasama