Clarence Darrow
There are two things that kill a genius - a fatal disease and contentment.Collection: Two
The truth is always modern and there never comes a time when it is safe to give it voice.Collection: Voice
Do I need to argue to Your Honor that cruelty only breeds cruelty? That hatred only causes hatred; that if there is any way to soften this human heart which is hard enough at its best, if there is any way to kill evil and hatred and all that goes with it, it is not through evil and hatred and cruelty; it is through charity, and love, and understanding?Collection: Heart
Different strokes for different folks.Collection: Inspirational
Most jury trials are contests between the rich and poor.Collection: Trials
The time will come when all people will view with horror light way in which society and its courts of law now take human life; and when that time comes, the way will be clear to device some better method of dealing with poverty and ignorance and their frequent byproducts, which we call crime.Collection: Ignorance
One cannot live through a long stretch of years without forming some philosophy of life.Collection: Philosophy
The truth is that brains have little to do with either the making or accumulating of money.Collection: Brain
...finally men were saved only through God's son dying for them, and that unless human beings believed this silly, impossible and wicked story they were doomed to hell? 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.Collection: Children
Education was in danger from the source that always hampered it—religious fanaticism.Collection: Education
Each child should be more intelligent than his parents.Collection: Children
Life is a never-ending school, and the really important lessons all tend to teach man his proper relation to the environment where he must live.Collection: Life
Autobiography is never entirely true. No one can get the right perspective on himself. Every fact is colored by imagination and dream.Collection: Dream
Human action is governed largely by instinct and emotion.Collection: Action
I have always felt that doubt was the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of God was the end of wisdom.Collection: Doubt
I feel as I always have, that the earth is the home and the only home of man, and I am convinced that whatever he is to get out of his existence he must get while he is here.Collection: Home
I am sure of very little, and I shouldn't be surprised if those things were wrong.Collection: Littles
There is no such crime as a crime of thought; there are only crimes of action.Collection: Wisdom
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.Collection: Atheist
The best way to understand somebody else is to put yourself in his place.Collection: Way
History repeats itself. That's one of the things wrong with history.Collection: Funny
I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose.Collection: Death
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.Collection: Law
Justice has nothing to do with what goes on in a courtroom; Justice is what comes out of a courtroomCollection: Justice
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.Collection: Reading
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.Collection: Believe
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.Collection: Country
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.Collection: Doubt
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.Collection: Past
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.Collection: Honesty
Never forget, almost every case has been won or lost when the jury is sworn.Collection: Never Forget
I am always suspicious of righteous indignation. Nothing is more cruel than righteous indignation.Collection: Righteous
An idea is a greater monument than a cathedral.Collection: Ideas
Instead of yielding to idle conversation it might profit one to cultivate silence and contemplation.Collection: Silence
I had a vivid imagination. Not only could I put myself in the other person's place, but I could not avoid doing so. My sympathies always went out to the weak, the suffering, and the poor. Realizing their sorrows I tried to relieve them in order that I myself might be relieved.Collection: Life
Everybody is a potential murderer. I’ve never killed anyone, but I frequently get satisfaction reading the obituary notices.Collection: Reading