“If it is fortunate, a legal generation has a Tenth Justice. I invoke the phrase not as it is sometimes used, to denominate the solicitor general, but rather as it was used to refer to Learned Hand, the famed appellate judge who never warmed a seat on the Supreme Court. By dint of relentless merit, these individuals earn legal authority akin to that wielded by the Nine. In Richard A. Posner, our generation has its Learned Hand, its Henry Friendly. In complex times, we can take comfort in the simple fact of his existence.”

– http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/books/review/richard-a-posners-reflections-on-judging.html?pagewanted=2&ref=todayspaper&_r=0