Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Frederick Evan Crane

American lawyer and Politician, Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals

"To make a man happy, fill his hands with work, his heart with affection, his mind with purpose, his memory with useful knowledge, his future with hope, and his stomach with food. The devil never enters a man except one of these rooms be vacant."

"Individuality is either the mark of genius or the reverse. Mediocrity finds safety in standardization."

"The words of the Constitution, like those of any other law, must receive a reasonable interpretation, considering the purpose and the object in view. Words are but symbols indicating ideas, and are subject to contraction and expansion to meet the idea sought to be expressed; they register frequently according to association, or like the thermometer, by the atmosphere surrounding them."

"Is it only in court or legal proceedings that danger lies from such evils? On the contrary, the danger there is at a minimum, for a very little can go wrong in a court where the proceedings are public, and the presiding officer is generally a man of judgment and experience. Any judge of much active work on the bench has had frequent occasion to guide the young practitioner, or protect the client from haste or folly of an older one. Not so in the office. Here the client is with his attorney alone, without the impartial supervision of a judge. Ignorance and stupidity may here create damage which the courts of the land cannot thereafter undo. Did the Legislature mean to leave this field to any person out of which to make a living? Reason says no. Practicing law as an attorney likewise covers the drawing of legal instruments as a business."