Darrow Clarence Quotes & Sayings

The ablest lawyers are always associated with the biggest fees. — Clarence Darrow

Instead of yielding to idle conversation it might profit one to cultivate silence and contemplation. — Clarence Darrow

The time will come when all people will view with horror light way in which society and its courts of law now take human life; and when that time comes, the way will be clear to device some better method of dealing with poverty and ignorance and their frequent byproducts, which we call crime. — Clarence Darrow

The trouble with law is lawyers. — Clarence Darrow

None meet life honestly and few heroically. — Clarence Darrow

There is no such thing as justice - in or out of court. — Clarence Darrow

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. I'm beginning to believe it. — Clarence Darrow

When every event was a miracle, when there was no order or system or law, there was no occasion for studying any subject, or being interested in anything excepting a religion which took care of the soul. As man doubted the primitive conceptions about religion, and no longer accepted the literal, miraculous teachings of ancient books, he set himself to understand nature. — Clarence Darrow

The nation that would to-day disarm its soldiers and turn its people to the paths of peace would accomplish more to its building up than by all the war taxes wrong from its hostile and
unwilling serfs — Clarence Darrow

Ignorance and fanaticism is ever busy and needs feeding. Always it is feeding and gloating for more. — Clarence Darrow

No man is a good citizen, a good neighbor, a good friend, or a good man just because he obeys the law. The intrinsic worth is determined mainly by the intrinsic make-up. — Clarence Darrow

Never forget, almost every case has been won or lost when the jury is sworn. — Clarence Darrow

Calvin Coolidge was the greatest man who ever came out of Plymouth Corner, Vermont. — Clarence Darrow

Justice has nothing to do with what goes on in a courtroom; Justice is what comes out of a courtroom. — Clarence Darrow

The first half of our lives are ruined by our parents and the second half by our children. — Clarence Darrow

If a man is happy in America, it is considered he is doing something wrong. — Clarence Darrow

The origin of the absurd idea of immortal life is easy to discover; it is kept alive by hope and fear, by childish faith, and by cowardice. — Clarence Darrow

Most lawyers only tell you about the cases they win. I can tell you about some I lose. A lawyer who wins all his cases does not have many. — Clarence Darrow

I am a friend of the working man, and I would rather be his friend, than be one. — Clarence Darrow

Can any rational person believe that the Bible is anything but a human document? — Clarence Darrow

Some false representations contravene the law; some do not ... The sensibilities of no two men are the same. Some would refuse to sell property without carefully explaining all about its merits and defects, and putting themselves in the purchasers' place and inquiring if he himself would buy under the circumstances. But such men never would be prosperous merchants. — Clarence Darrow

As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and if no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever. — Clarence Darrow

An agnostic is a doubter. The word is generally applied to those who doubt the verity of accepted religious creeds of faiths. — Clarence Darrow

Do I need to argue to Your Honor that cruelty only breeds cruelty? That hatred only causes hatred; that if there is any way to soften this human heart which is hard enough at its best, if there is any way to kill evil and hatred and all that goes with it, it is not through evil and hatred and cruelty; it is through charity, and love, and understanding? — Clarence Darrow

If a man really has charge of his destiny at all, he should have something to say about getting born; and I only came through by a hair's-breadth. What had I to do with this momentous first step? In the language of the lawyer, I was not even a party of the second part. — Clarence Darrow

The purpose of life is living. Men and women should get the most they can out of their lives. — Clarence Darrow

Sympathy is the child of imagination — Clarence Darrow

I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure - that is all that agnosticism means. — Clarence Darrow

Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for. — Clarence Darrow

A prison is confining to the body, but whether it affects the mind, depends entirely upon the mind. — Clarence Darrow

The fact that there is a general belief in a future life is no evidence of its truth — Clarence Darrow

Religion is the belief in future life and in God. I don't believe in either. — Clarence Darrow

Do you, good people, believe that Adam and Eve were created in the Garden of Eden and that they were forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge? I do. The church has always been afraid of that tree. It still is afraid of knowledge. Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas. So does whiskey. I believe in the brain of man. — Clarence Darrow

In the great flood of human life that is spawned upon the earth, it is not often that a man is born. — Clarence Darrow

Depressions may bring people closer to the church but so do funerals. — Clarence Darrow

I cannot tell and I shall never know how many words of mine might have given birth to cruelty in place of love and kindness and charity. — Clarence Darrow

The man who fights for his fellow-man is a better man than the one who fights for himself. — Clarence Darrow

To know all is to understand all, and this leaves no room for judgement and condemnation. — Clarence Darrow

We're all killers at heart ... I have never taken anybody's life, but I have often read obituary notices with considerable satisfaction. — Clarence Darrow

The objector and the rebel who raises his voice against what he believes to be the injustice of the present and the wrongs of the past is the one who hunches the world along. — Clarence Darrow

Ancestors do not mean so much. The rebel who succeeds generally makes it easier for the posterity that follows him; so these descendants are usually contented and smug and soft. Rebels are made from life, not ancestors. — Clarence Darrow

If every man who passed an unjust judgment on his fellow should be condemned, how many judges would be found so vain and foolish as to review and condemn their Maker's work? — Clarence Darrow

Education was in danger from the source that always hampered it - religious fanaticism. — Clarence Darrow

I go to a better tailor than any of you and pay more for my clothes. The only difference is that you probably don't sleep in yours. — Clarence Darrow

Whenever I hear people discussing birth control, I always remember that I was fifth. — Clarence Darrow

Every one knows that the heavenly bodies move in certain paths in relation to each other with seeming consistency and regularity which we call [physical] law ... No one attributes freewill or motive to the material world. Is the conduct of man or the other animals any more subject to whim or choice than the action of the planets? ... We know that man's every act is induced by motives that led or urged him here or there; that the sequence of cause and effect runs through the whole universe, and is nowhere more compelling than with man. — Clarence Darrow

The world is made up for the most part of morons and natural tyrants, sure of themselves, strong in their own opinions, never doubting anything. — Clarence Darrow

Freedom comes from human beings, rather than from laws and institutions. — Clarence Darrow

I am an agnostic; I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of. — Clarence Darrow

You can only be free if I am free. — Clarence Darrow

In spite of all the yearnings of men, no one can produce a single fact or reason to support the belief in God and in personal immortality. — Clarence Darrow

The truth is always modern and there never comes a time when it is safe to give it voice. — Clarence Darrow

With all their faults, trade-unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed. — Clarence Darrow

Any one who thinks is an agnostic about something, otherwise he must believe that he is possessed of all knowledge. And the proper place for such a person is in the madhouse or the home for the feeble-minded. — Clarence Darrow

Clarence Darrow was a unique and courageous man. Several of my favourite actors have played Darrow ... Henry Fonda, Orson Welles and Spencer Tracy. — Kevin Spacey

I am simply an agnostic. I haven't yet had time or opportunity to explore the universe, and I don't know what I might run on to in some nook or corner. — Clarence Darrow

[George Everett Macdonald was] a valiant soldier for human liberty. — Clarence Darrow

I feel as I always have, that the earth is the home and the only home of man, and I am convinced that whatever he is to get out of his existence he must get while he is here. — Clarence Darrow

If there is to be any permanent improvement in man and any better social order, it must come mainly from the education and humanizing of man. — Clarence Darrow

I knew that it is out of the question to have honest, economical government while a few are inordinately rich and the great mass of men are poor. In fact, it is to be doubted if anything really worthwhile can be done until there is a fairer distribution of wealth. — Clarence Darrow

The only real lawyers are trial lawyers, and trial lawyers try cases to juries. — Clarence Darrow

Every government on earth is the personification of violence and force, and yet the doctine of non-resistance is as old as human thought - even more than this, the instinct is as old as life upon the earth. — Clarence Darrow

No law was ever made by the people; they are made for the people — Clarence Darrow

No nation can be really great that is held together by Gatling guns, and no true loyalty can be induced and kept through fear. — Clarence Darrow

When they want a working man for anything excepting work they want him for conspiracy. — Clarence Darrow

Every thought of pity is like the balm of Gilead to our souls. — Clarence Darrow

Religion is based on the insistence that over and above all is a purpose and a guiding hand that is beneficent and kind, and would not leave a hair unnumbered or let a sparrow fall unnoticed to the ground. Those who cherish such hallucinations forget that the all-loving power is inflicting tuberculosis, cancer, famine, and pestilence on the trusting, simple sons of men. — Clarence Darrow

The really intelligent are as abnormal as the defective. The great masses of men are rather mediocre, and those above and below are exceptions. — Clarence Darrow

History repeats itself. That's one of the things wrong with history. — Clarence Darrow

To think is to differ. — Clarence Darrow

No other offense has ever been visited with such severe penalties as seeking to help the oppressed. — Clarence Darrow

Most jury trials are contests between the rich and poor. — Clarence Darrow

I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure. — Clarence Darrow

The truth is, no man is white and no man is black. We are all freckled. — Clarence Darrow

Lawyers are natural politicians. — Clarence Darrow

It is bigotry for public schools to teach only one theory of origins. — Clarence Darrow

Henry Lloyd was with Darrow when they toured the mine. It was a dreadful experience, Lloyd said, "like a foretaste of the inferno."

"You might as well get used to it," Darrow told him. Heaven was reserved for Wall Street financiers. Infidels like themselves would be rooming with Satan. — John A. Farrell

It must always be remembered that all laws are naturally and inevitably evolved by the strongest force in a community, and in the last analysis made for the protection of the dominant class. — Clarence Darrow

It does not make much difference what kind of a law we make as long as the judges tell us what it means. — Clarence Darrow

Laws have come down to us from old customs and folk-ways based on primitive ideas of man's origin, capacity and responsibility. — Clarence Darrow

No iconoclast can possibly escape the severest criticism. — Clarence Darrow

Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails. — Clarence Darrow

We know life is futile. A man who considers that his life is of very wonderful importance is awfully close to a padded cell. — Clarence Darrow

In order to have enough freedom, it is necessary to have too much. — Clarence Darrow

The error I found in the philosophy of Henry George was its cocksureness, its simplicity, and the small value that it placed upon the selfish motives of men. The doctrine was a hang-over from the seventeenth century in France, when the philosophers had given up the idea of God, but still thought that there must be some immovable basis for man's conduct and ideals. In this dilemma they evolved the theory of natural rights. If 'natural rights' means anything it means that the individual rights are to be determined by the conduct of Nature. But Nature knows nothing about rights in the sense of human conception. — Clarence Darrow

Robert G. Ingersoll was a great man. a wonderful intellect, a great soul of matchless courage, one of the great men of the earth -- and yet we have no right to bow down to his memory simply because he was great. Great orators, great soldiers, great lawyers, often use their gifts for a most unholy cause. We meet to pay a tribute of love and respect to Robert G. Ingersoll because he used his matchless power for the good of man.

{Darrow's eulogy for Ingersoll at his funeral} — Clarence Darrow

A criminal is someone without the capital to incorporate — Clarence Darrow

Liberty is the most jealous and exacting mistress that can beguile the soul and brain of man. — Clarence Darrow

I never wanted to see anybody die, but there are a few obituary notices I have read with pleasure. — Clarence Darrow

You can't get to a pleasant place to be at unless you use pleasant methods to get there. When you are dealing with a human society the means is fully as important as the end. — Clarence Darrow

The consideration and kindness shown by unfortunates to each other are surprising to those who have no experience with this class of men. Often to find real sympathy you must go to those who know what misery means. — Clarence Darrow

The pursuit of truth will set you free; even if you never catch up with it. — Clarence Darrow

When we fully understand the brevity of life, its fleeting joys and unavoidable pains; when we accept the facts that all men and women are approaching an inevitable doom: the consciousness of it should make us more kindly and considerate of each other. This feeling should make men and women use their best efforts to help their fellow travelers on the road, to make the path brighter and easier as we journey on. It should bring a closer kinship, a better understanding, and a deeper sympathy for the wayfarers who must live a common life and die a common death. — Clarence Darrow

Religious doctrines do not and clearly cannot be adopted as the criminal code of a state. — Clarence Darrow

This book comes from the reflections and experience of more than forty years spent in court. Aside from the practice of my profession, the topics I have treated are such as have always held my interest and inspired a taste for books that discuss the human machine with its manifestations and the causes of its varied activity. — Clarence Darrow

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free. — Clarence Darrow

My constitution was destroyed long ago; now I am living under the bylaws. — Clarence Darrow

Clarence Darrow, one of history's greatest lawyers, once noted "There is no such thing as justice, in or out of court." Perhaps because justice is a flawed concept that ultimately comes down to the decision of twelve people. People with their own experiences, prejudices, feelings about what defines right and wrong. Which is why, when the system fails us, we must go out and seek our own justice. — Emily Thorne

There is no such crime as a crime of thought; there are only crimes of action. — Clarence Darrow

Criminal cases receive the attention of the press. The cruel and disagreeable things of life are more apt to get the newspaper space than the pleasant ones. It must be that most people enjoy hearing of and reading about the troubles of others. Perhaps men unconsciously feel that they rise in the general level as others go down. — Clarence Darrow