"The Chief End of Man is to Make General Propositions -- Adding That No General Proposition is Worth A Damn"

Maybe the best thing Oliver Wendell Holmes ever wrote, described as the "Holmesian tension" and recollected in this interesting old review by Alexander Bickel.  Bickel tacks this on: "They are delusive when slogans are mistaken for them, and dangerous when they harden into dogma; yet the Court’s capacity to form and apply general propositions remains its chief end and reason for existence." 

Holmes said it better.