Clarence Darrow Quotations

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

Laws should be like clothes. They should be made to fit the people they serve.

History repeats itself, and that's one of the things that's wrong with history

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

You can only be free if I am free.

There is a soul of truth in error; there is a soul of good in evil.

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.

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.

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

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

Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?

Working people have alot of bad habits, but the worst of these is work.

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

I don't like spinach, and I'm glad I don't, because if I liked it I'd eat it, and I just hate it.

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

I do not believe in god because I do not believe in Mother Goose.

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.

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

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

I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure - that is all that agnosticism means.

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

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

Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for.

My dear woman, ... ever since the Phoenicians invented money there has been only one answer to that question.

What I hope to see for labor is the people who work in factories own the factories

The pursuit of truth shall set you free - even if you never catch up with it.

Whenever I hear of birth control, I always remember that I was the fifth

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.

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

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.

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.

I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose.

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.

A criminal is someone without the capital to incorporate

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 always suspicious of righteous indignation. Nothing is more cruel than righteous indignation.

An idea is a greater monument than a cathedral.

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.

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.

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.

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

With all their faults, trade unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in men, than any other association of men.

We are born and we die; and between these two most important events in our lives more or less time elapses which we have to waste somehow or other. In the end it does not seem to matter much whether we have done so in making money, or practicing law, or reading or playing, or in any other way, as long as we felt we were deriving a maximum of happiness out of our doings.

Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom.

The efforts of the medical profession in the US to control:...its...job it proposes to monopolize. It has been carrying on a vigorous campaign all over the country against new methods and schools of healing because it wants the business...I have watched this medical profession for a long time and it bears watching.

It is indeed strange that with all the knowledge we have gained in the past hundred years we preserve and practice the methods of an ancient and barbarous world in our dealing with crime. So long as this is observed and exercised there can be no change except to heap more cruelties and more wretchedness upon those who are the victims of our foolish system.

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

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

The trouble with law is lawyers.

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

To think is to differ.

Laws should be like clothes. They should be made to fit the people they are meant to serve.

Liberty is the most jealous and exacting mistress that can beguile the brain and soul of man. From him who will not give her all, she will have nothing. She knows that his pretended love serves but to betray. But when once the fierce heat of her quenchless, lustrous eyes have burned into the victim's heart, he will know no other smile but hers.

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.

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.

Inside every lawyer is the wreck of a poet.

Nothing is so loved by tyrants as obedient subjects.

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.

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

I have suffered from being misunderstood, but I would have suffered a hell of a lot more if I had been understood.

All men have an emotion to kill; when they strongly dislike someone they involuntarily wish he was dead. I have never killed anyone, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction.

Different strokes for different folks.

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

Punishment as punishment is not admissible unless the offender has had the free will to select his course.

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

Some false representations contravene the law; some do not. The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business, and, besides, could not be done. The line between honesty and dishonesty is a narrow, shifting one and usually lets those get by that are the most subtle and already have more than they can use.

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.

People in this world are not often logical.

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.

Cheating, having 'hoes,' none of that is cute. To be honest, it's really immature. I don't see how people take pride in breaking someone's heart. The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.

Wars always bring about a conservative reaction. They overwhelm and destroy patient and careful efforts to improve the condition of man.

If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach it in the public school, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private school . . . At the next session you may ban books and newspapers. Soon you may set Catholic against Protestant and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the minds of men.

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

The purpose of life is to live it.

One believes in the truthfulness of a man because of his long experience with the man, and because the man has always told a consistent story. But no man has told so consistent a story as nature.

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

The difference between the child and the man lies chiefly in the unlimited confidence and buoyancy of youth.

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.

There are two things that kill a genius: a fatal disease and contentment.

The best way to understand somebody else is to put yourself in his place.

The audience that storms the box-office of the theater to gain entrance to a sensational show is small and sleepy compared with the throng that crashes the courthouse door when something concerning real life and death is to be laid bare to the public.