Clarence Darrow quotes - page 3

Clarence Darrow was an influential American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union. Known for defending unpopular clients and advocating for civil rights, he played a prominent role in such famous cases as the Scopes “Monkey” Trial and the Leopold and Loeb case. He became a symbol of progressive thought and the fight for social justice in American law. Here are 103 of his quotes:

Even Voltaire's father could not make a lawyer out of a genius. To be a good lawyer, one must have a mind and a disposition to venerate the past; a respect for precedents; a belief in the wisdom and the sanctity of the dead. Voltaire had genius, imagination, feeling, and poetry, and these gifts always have been, and always will be, incompatible with the practice of law.

Clarence Darrow

It is not for the world to judge, but to crown them all alike. Each and all lived out their own being, did their work in their own way, and carried a reluctant, stupid humanity to greater possibilities and grander heights.

Clarence Darrow

To disband the armies and destroy the forts, to diffuse love and brotherhood, and peace and justice in the place of war and strife, could tend only to the building up of character, the elevation of the soul, and the strength and well-being of the state.

Clarence Darrow

Hell, that's why they make erasers.

Clarence Darrow

Much of his work he did while confined to his bed. He was always an invalid, always obliged to take great care of himself, living constantly with death just before him, never idle a moment for fear his work would not be done. Probably no man ever lived who assailed the Church and the State with the same wit and keenness that was always at Voltaire's command; and yet in spite of this he managed to live comfortably, accumulate riches and die in peace.

Clarence Darrow

For to know all is to understand all, and this leaves no room for judgment and condemnation.

Clarence Darrow

Nothing is so loved by tyrants as obedient subjects.

Clarence Darrow

It's not bad people I fear so much as good people. When a person is sure that he is good, he is nearly hopeless; he gets cruel- he believes in punishment.

Clarence Darrow

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

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

The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are drifting side by side to our common doom.

Clarence Darrow

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

Clarence Darrow

Someday I hope to write a book where the royalties will pay for the copies I give away.

Clarence Darrow

To say that the universe was here last year, or millions of years ago, does not explain its origin. This is still a mystery. As to the question of the origin of things, man can only wonder and doubt and guess.

Clarence Darrow

None meet life honestly and few heroically.

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

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

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

No iconoclast can possibly escape the severest criticism.

Clarence Darrow

I am an agnostic as to the question of God.

Clarence Darrow

Can anyone with intelligence really believe that a child born today should be doomed because the snake tempted Eve and Eve tempted Adam? To believe that is not God-worship; it is devil-worship. Can anyone call this scheme of creation and damnation moral? It defies every principle of morality, as man conceives morality. Can anyone believe today that the whole world was destroyed by flood, save only Noah and his family and a male and female of each species of animal that entered the Ark? There are almost a million species of insects alone. How did Noah match these up and make sure of getting male and female to reproduce life in the world after the flood had spent its force? And why should all the lower animals have been destroyed? Were they included in the sinning of man? This is a story which could not beguile a fairly bright child of five years of age today.

Clarence Darrow

Had the modern professors of eugenics had power in France in 1694, they probably would not have permitted such a child to have been born. Their scientific knowledge would have shown conclusively that no person of value could have come from the union of his father and mother. In those days, nature had not been instructed by the professors of eugenics and so Voltaire was born.

Clarence Darrow