Clarence Darrow Quotes

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

No iconoclast can possibly escape the severest criticism.

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.

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

Life is a never-ending school, and the really important lessons all tend to teach humanity our proper relation to the environment where we must live.

Each child should be more intelligent than his parents.

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

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

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

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

The ablest lawyers are always associated with the biggest fees.

I have always felt that doubt was the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of God was the end of wisdom.

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

Everybody is a potential murderer. I've never killed anyone, but I frequently get satisfaction reading the obituary notices.

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

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

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.

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

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

Physical deformity, calls forth our charity. But the infinite misfortune of moral deformity calls forth nothing but hatred and vengeance.

Scopes isn't on trial; civilization is on trial.

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

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

We are turning our prisons into living tombs, inhabited by doomed men living in everlasting blank despair.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can only be free if I am free.

The purpose of life is to live it.

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

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

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

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

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

Eugene V. Debs has always been one of my heroes.

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

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

The law is a horrible business.

Justice must take account of infinite circumstances which a human being cannot understand.

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

In life one cannot eat his cake and have it, too; he must make his choice and then do the best he can to be content to go the way his judgment leads.

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.

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

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

Chloroform unfit children. Show them the same mercy that is shown beasts that are no longer fit to live.

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

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

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

The trouble with law is lawyers.

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

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

I believe that religion is the belief in future life and in God. I don't believe in either. I don't believe in God as I don't believe in Mother Goose.

A criminal is someone without the capital to incorporate

To think is to differ.

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.

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

Great wealth often curses all who touch it.

Inside every lawyer is the wreck of a poet.

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

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

Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for.

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.

People in this world are not often logical.

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

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

Money has been the most serious handicap that we have ever met. There are times when poverty is fortunate

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

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

One cannot live through a long stretch of years without forming some philosophy of life.

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

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 true man neither guiltily conceals nor anxiously explains nor vulgarly parades.

Nothing is so loved by tyrants as obedient subjects.

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

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

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

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

The truth is that brains have little to do with either the making or accumulating of money.

Autobiography is never entirely true. No one can get the right perspective on himself. Every fact is colored by imagination and dream.

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

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

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.

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

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

I had grown tired of standing in the lean and lonely front line facing the greatest enemy that ever confronted man
public opinion.

None meet life honestly and few heroically.

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

Lawyers are natural politicians.

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

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

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

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.

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

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