Will You Walk With Me a Ways So We Can Talk of These Days?
Quotes of famous jurists to help me understand
Mar 8, 2020 · 4 min read
This morning I awoke with a dread in my soul.
What now?
My legs have been beaten, my heart has been beaten. Why now my soul?
The events of the last weeks strained my ability to understand.
A president as bad for our country and its people as the last was good.
A Congress as bad for our country and its people as any I have read about.
People as bad for our country and its people than at any time in the last 70 years.
I have crawled on my belly upon the earth looking, searching, wondering.
How are we ever going to put this country back together?
Can we ever put this country back together?
How are we going to convince people to treat each other with decency and respect?
I looked up quotes for two Supreme Court Justices and an Appeals Court jurist.
One of my favorites is Justice Louis Brandeis. He seems to have a quiet and common man at heart.
I just read some of Sonia Sotomayor’s quotes. She is a woman’s woman. Strong and insightful and nurturing her flock, I think.
Then comes Learned Hand. His wife’s family had an unorthodox way of naming its children. His full name is Billings Learned Hand. He was born in 1872. He was the second and last child of Samuel and Lydia Hand.
His mother’s family used surnames as given names. So Billings Learned Hand had a maternal uncle named Hand, and a grandfather were both named Billings Peck Learned.
Jurists quote him more such as legal scholars and Supreme Court Justices than any other lower-court judge.
Maybe we can find a path forward. Right now I don’t see it.
Please send me any insights you gain from this exercise.
In no particular order:
“If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.”Brandeis
