Gerry Spence quotes

Gerry Spence is an American trial lawyer renowned for his powerful courtroom presence and record of never losing a criminal case. Known for representing high-profile clients and championing the rights of ordinary people, he has become a legendary figure in American law. He is also recognized as a prolific author and educator, sharing his expertise with aspiring lawyers. Here are 44 of his quotes:

What the insurance companies have done is to reverse the business so that the public at large insures the insurance companies.

Gerry Spence

I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.

Gerry Spence

A new fascism promises security from the terror of crime. All that is required is that we take away the criminals' rights - which, of course, are our own. Out of our desperation and fear we begin to feel a sense of security from the new totalitarian state.

Gerry Spence

There are only two races (and they are not distinguished by color): those who are free and those who are not.

Gerry Spence

My intent is to tell the truth as I know it, realizing that what is true for me may be blasphemy for others.

Gerry Spence

The people of a nation are enslaved when, together, they are helpless to institute effective change, when the people serve the government more than the government serves them.

Gerry Spence

When any system has for its goal the advancement of the system over the betterment of its individual members, such a system is embedded in slavery.

Gerry Spence

How much of our lives could we buy back if we cherished our lives instead of our trinkets?

Gerry Spence

Our prejudices - we all have them - are part of our personality structure. The problem is that our prejudices may lie lurking at the bottom of the subterranean mind where the slowly ooze up and color our thinking without our knowing it.

Gerry Spence

We are defined by how we use our power.

Gerry Spence

When you are faced with prejudice, logic and justice are impotent. Still, we may have an obligation to argue directly into the face of the prejudice, even though there is no chance to win.

Gerry Spence

I dream of a time when the people will retake their airways and use them to achieve a voice to rediscover democracy, and to see the divine potential of man.

Gerry Spence

To accept capitalism and Free Enterprise as articles of faith without agreeing that we must be free to consider whether what is offered is free and freeing is itself enslavement.

Gerry Spence

The stain of prejudice is often indelible.

Gerry Spence

Everyone wants to argue. Everyone does. Everyone needs to.

Gerry Spence

Money in doses disproportionate to our needs enslaves.

Gerry Spence

As we drive down the freeways, we see the new cars, but not the massive new-car loans that enslave their drivers to the banks.

Gerry Spence

Today the courts are choked with lawsuits brought by people against the New King. When they sue each other as a result of an automobile accident they in fact sue the King, for both parties are likely insured. Steadily the courts have become clearing-houses for the insurance industry.

Gerry Spence

To bargain freedom for security is the devil's bargain. Having made the bargain, one enjoys neither freedom nor security.

Gerry Spence

Nearly every day on the television set the hero cop breaks into the bad guy's house and beats a confession out of him and we cheer on the cop. Propaganda smears our clear vision. It causes us to accept the diminishment of our constitutional protections as something to be lauded - after all, the cop was protecting us.

Gerry Spence

The less of one's life one must exchange for money, the more freedom one may enjoy.

Gerry Spence

Each of us has been endowed with the perfect power to be free. Slavery is a state of mind that fails to acknowledge the slave's own power.

Gerry Spence