43 Quotes & Sayings By Clarence Darrow

Clarence Darrow was an American attorney and a prominent civil libertarian, and is generally regarded as one of the greatest trial attorneys of all time. He regularly defended clients who were accused of breaking the law and was best known for his work defending members of the Scottsboro Boys and the Scopes Trial. Darrow was particularly noted for his expertise in criminal law, which led him to join the staff of several district attorneys. In 1912, he became a member of the Illinois Supreme Court Solicitor's Office, where he performed legal research and writing for several years Read more

In 1926 he ran as a candidate for district attorney against Abraham Kohn. Darrow's public career ended in 1928 when he quit his job as a state's attorney to run for governor of Illinois as a Democrat. He was defeated in a landslide by Republican Robert A.

Taft, who ran against him on a platform that promised to support prohibition and other progressive policies.

1
Were these boys in their right minds? Here were two boys with good intellect, one eighteen and one nineteen. They had all the prospects that life could hold out for any of the young; one a graduate of Chicago and another of Ann Arbor; one who had passed his examination for the Harvard Law School and was about to take a trip in Europe, --another who had passed at Ann Arbor, the youngest in his class, with three thousand dollars in the bank. Boys who never knew what it was to want a dollar; boys who could reach any position that was to boys of that kind to reach; boys of distinguished and honorable families, families of wealth and position, with all the world before them. And they gave it all up for nothing, for nothing! They took a little companion of one of them, on a crowded street, and killed him, for nothing, and sacrificed everything that could be of value in human life upon the crazy scheme of a couple of immature lads. Now, your Honor, you have been a boy; I have been a boy. And we have known other boys. The best way to understand somebody else is to put yourself in his place. Is it within the realm of your imagination that a boy who was right, with all the prospects of life before him, who could choose what he wanted, without the slightest reason in the world would lure a young companion to his death, and take his place in the shadow of the gallows?.. No one who has the process of reasoning could doubt that a boy who would do that is not right. How insane they are I care not, whether medically or legally. They did not reason; they could not reason; they committed the most foolish, most unprovoked, most purposeless, most causeless act that any two boys ever committed, and they put themselves where the rope is dangling above their heads.. Why did they kill little Bobby Franks?Not for money, not for spite; not for hate. They killed him as they might kill a spider or a fly, for the experience. They killed him because they were made that way. Because somewhere in the infinite processes that go to the making up of the boy or the man something slipped, and those unfortunate lads sit here hated, despised, outcasts, with the community shouting for their blood.. I know, Your Honor, that every atom of life in all this universe is bound up together. I know that a pebble cannot be thrown into the ocean without disturbing every drop of water in the sea. I know that every life is inextricably mixed and woven with every other life. I know that every influence, conscious and unconscious, acts and reacts on every living organism, and that no one can fix the blame. I know that all life is a series of infinite chances, which sometimes result one way and sometimes another. I have not the infinite wisdom that can fathom it, neither has any other human brain. Clarence Darrow
2
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
3
Every instinct that is found in any man is in all men. The strength of the emotion may not be so overpowering, the barriers against possession not so insurmountable, the urge to accomplish the desire less keen. With some, inhibitions and urges may be neutralized by other tendencies. But with every being the primal emotions are there. All men have an emotion to kill; when they strongly dislike some one they involuntarily wish he was dead. I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction. Clarence Darrow
4
Chase after the truth like all hell and you’ll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails. Clarence Darrow
I have always felt that doubt was the beginning of...
5
I have always felt that doubt was the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of God was the end of wisdom. Clarence Darrow
The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom....
6
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
I do not consider it an insult, but rather a...
7
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
8
Some false representations contravene the law; some do not.... The sensibilities of no two men are the same. Some would refuse to sell property without carefully explaining all about its merits and defects, and putting themselves in the purchasers' place and inquiring if he himself would buy under the circumstances. But such men never would be prosperous merchants. Clarence Darrow
You can only be free if I am free.
9
You can only be free if I am free. Clarence Darrow
10
History repeats itself. That's one of the things wrong with history. Clarence Darrow
11
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. Clarence Darrow
12
If every man who passed an unjust judgment on his fellow should be condemned, how many judges would be found so vain and foolish as to review and condemn their Maker’s work? Clarence Darrow
13
Sympathy is the child of imagination Clarence Darrow
14
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
15
The criminals who, in the face of contumely, hatred or violence, have led the world to a higher standard and brought humanity to a diviner order, have so loved truth and righteousness as to defy the law, and in every age these men have met the life of outcasts, and the death of felons. Whatever may be said of the necessity of government to protect itself, no one can believe that any human being merits punishment for following his own highest ideal. Punishment can only be in any wise defended upon the theory that the individual is untrue to himself, that his heart is bad. But all schemes of human punishment seem specially contrived to exempt this class of men. Those who are untrue to themselves find no difficulty in obeying the state, or at least in seeming to be subservient to its laws. The cunning man without strong convictions of right and wrong can always find ample room to operate his trade inside the dead line the law lays down. Even Blackstone wrote that a man who governed his conduct solely by the law was neither an honest man nor a good citizen. The penal code cannot pretend to cover all the vicious acts of men. If there is a distinction between vicious acts and righteous acts, each are so numerous that even to catalogue them would be beyond the power of the state. Clarence Darrow
16
I am an Agnostic because I am not afraid to think. 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
17
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 schools, and the next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers. Soon you may set Catholic against Protestant and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the minds of men. If you can do one you can do the other. Ignorance and fanaticism is ever busy and needs feeding. Always it is feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers, tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lectures, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After while, your honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth century when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. Clarence Darrow
18
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. Clarence Darrow
19
Ignorance and fanaticism is ever busy and needs feeding. Always it is feeding and gloating for more. Clarence Darrow
20
There are a lot of myths which make the human race cruel and barbarous and unkind. Good and Evil, Sin and Crime, Free Will and the like delusions made to excuse God for damning men and to excuse men for crucifying each other. Clarence Darrow
21
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
22
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
23
[George Everett Macdonald was] a valiant soldier for human liberty. Clarence Darrow
24
True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else. Clarence Darrow
25
I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose. Clarence Darrow
26
There is no such thing as justice - in or out of court. Clarence Darrow
27
I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of. Clarence Darrow
28
The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children. Clarence Darrow
29
Getting married is a good deal like going to a restaurant with your friends. You order what you want and then when you see what the other fellow got you wish you had taken that. Clarence Darrow
30
When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become president. I'm beginning to believe it. Clarence Darrow
31
The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business. Clarence Darrow
32
I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure. Clarence Darrow
33
Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas. Clarence Darrow
34
History repeats itself, and that's one of the things that's wrong with history. Clarence Darrow
35
If you lose the power to laugh, you lose the power to think. Clarence Darrow
36
The pursuit of truth will set you free even if you never catch up with it. Clarence Darrow
37
When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President I'm beginning to believe it. Clarence Darrow
38
I am an agnostic I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of. Clarence Darrow
39
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
40
The trouble with law is lawyers. Clarence Darrow
41
The only real lawyers are trial lawyers, and trial lawyers try cases to juries. Clarence Darrow
42
You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. Clarence Darrow