Clarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer who became famous in the early 20th century for his involvement in the Leopold and Loeb murder trial and the Scopes “Monkey” Trial. He was a leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union and a prominent advocate for Georgist economic reform. These Clarence Darrow quotes will motivate you.
Best Clarence Darrow Quotes
- “I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. I’m beginning to believe it.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.” ~ Clarence Darrow
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“You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man’s freedom.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “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.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “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.” ~ Clarence Darrow
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“Nothing is so loved by tyrants as obedient subjects.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “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.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “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.” ~ Clarence Darrow
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“A criminal is someone without the capital to incorporate” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “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.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “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.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “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.” ~ Clarence Darrow
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“If you lose the power to laugh, you lose the power to think.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “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.” ~ Clarence Darrow Quotes
- “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.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt.” ~ Clarence Darrow
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“The man who fights for his fellow-man is a better man than the one who fights for himself.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “Can any rational person believe that the Bible is anything but a human document? We now know pretty well where the various books came from, and about when they were written. We know that they were written by human beings who had no knowledge of science, little knowledge of life, and were influenced by the barbarous morality of primitive times, and were grossly ignorant of most things that men know today.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “No other offense has ever been visited with such severe penalties as seeking to help the oppressed.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “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.” ~ Clarence Darrow
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“Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “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.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “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.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “Inside every lawyer is the wreck of a poet.” ~ Clarence Darrow Quotes
- “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.” ~ Clarence Darrow
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“I don’t believe in God because I don’t believe in Mother Goose.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “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.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “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.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “The most human thing we can do is comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “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.” ~ Clarence Darrow
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“History repeats itself. That’s one of the things wrong with history.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “There is no such crime as a crime of thought; there are only crimes of action.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “The first half of our lives are ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “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.” ~ Clarence Darrow
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“I am sure of very little, and I shouldn’t be surprised if those things were wrong.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “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.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “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.” ~ Clarence Darrow
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“The trouble with law is lawyers.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “There are two things that kill a genius – a fatal disease and contentment.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “The truth is that brains have little to do with either the making or accumulating of money.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “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.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “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.” ~ Clarence Darrow
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“I am always suspicious of righteous indignation. Nothing is more cruel than righteous indignation.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “…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.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “Laws should be like clothes. They should be made to fit the people they are meant to serve.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “You can only be free if I am free.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “Education was in danger from the source that always hampered it—religious fanaticism.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “Instead of yielding to idle conversation it might profit one to cultivate silence and contemplation.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “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.” ~ Clarence Darrow
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“An idea is a greater monument than a cathedral.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “Never forget, almost every case has been won or lost when the jury is sworn.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “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.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “Each child should be more intelligent than his parents.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “One cannot live through a long stretch of years without forming some philosophy of life.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “I am an agnostic; I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “Chase after the truth like all hell.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “Chase after the truth like all hell.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “Liberty is the most jealous and exacting mistress that can beguile the brain and soul of man.” ~ Clarence Darrow
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“The purpose of life is to live it.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “The ability and inclination to use physical strength is no indication of bravery or tenacity to life. The greatest cowards are often the greatest bullies. Nothing is cheaper and more common than physical bravery.” ~ Clarence Darrow
- “The ability and inclination to use physical strength is no indication of bravery or tenacity to life. The greatest cowards are often the greatest bullies. Nothing is cheaper and more common than physical bravery.” ~ Clarence Darrow
