Berlin—Lawyers as Cutlery

The late Mr. Justice Holmes once divided good lawyers into “razors” and “good kitchen knives.” Doubtless this omits many other varieties—guillotines (like Cecil Radcliffe), rapiers with not much edge but the finest points (like John Sparrow), etc., but under that classification Herbert Hart is a slender bread-knife. . .

–Isaiah Berlin, in a letter to Henry Price, Dec. 18, 1944 in: Isaiah Berlin Letters: 1928-1946, p. 511 (H. Hardy ed. 2004).