The judge weighs the arguments and puts a brave face on the matter, and since there must be a decision, decides as he can, and hopes he has done justice and given satisfaction to the community
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the difficult role of a judge who must make decisions that affect the community while striving for justice.
In this quote, Ralph Waldo Emerson illustrates the complex responsibilities faced by a judge. The judge must carefully assess the arguments presented to him or her, maintain a composed demeanor, and ultimately make a decision that is meant to serve justice and satisfy societal expectations. This underscores the weight of judicial responsibility and the hope that the decision reached will be fair and just for all parties involved.
In practice
During a seminar on law, this quote can be used to emphasize the importance of judicial responsibility.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
We say that Christ so died that He infallibly secured the salvation of a multitude that no man can number, who through Christ's death not only may be saved, but are saved, must be saved, and cannot by any possibility run the hazard of being anything but saved.
Anyone who has declared someone else to be an idiot, a bad apple, is annoyed when it turns out in the end that he isn't.
When men are oppressed, it's a tragedy. When women are oppressed, it's tradition.
I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they're always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend...I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don't last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust. But I can pretend.
I shuddered to think how completely the insane were in the power of their keepers, and how one could weep and plead for release, and all of no avail, if the keepers were so minded.
It comes so soon, the moment when there is nothing left to wait for.
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