Clarence Darrow Quotes

I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction.

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom.

The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.

True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.

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.

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

Nothing is so loved by tyrants as obedient subjects.

To be an effective criminal defense counsel, an attorney must be prepared to be demanding, outrageous, irreverent, blasphemous, a rogue, a renegade, and a hated, isolated, and lonely person - few love a spokesman for the despised and the damned.

I am pleading for the future; I am pleading for a time when hatred and cruelty will not control the hearts of men. When we can learn by, reason and judgment and understanding and faith that all life is worth saving, and that mercy is the highest attribute of man.

Anyone can spot a lie, unless he is in need of that lie.

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.

A criminal is someone without the capital to incorporate

I have lived my life, and I have fought my battles, not against the weak and the poor - anybody can do that - but against power, against injustice, against oppression, and I have asked no odds from them, and I never shall.

If you lose the power to laugh, you lose the power to think.

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

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.

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

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.

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

The most human thing we can do is comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

I am not afraid of any god in the universe who would send me or any other man or woman to hell. If there were such a being, he would not be a god; he would be a devil.

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

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.

Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt.

Common experience shows how much rarer is moral courage than physical bravery. A thousand men will march to the mouth of the cannon where one man will dare espouse an unpopular cause . . . True courage and manhood come from the consciousness of the right attitude toward the world, the faith in one's purpose, and the sufficiency of one's own approval as a justification for one's own acts.