Clarence Darrow Quotes

116 Sourced Quotes

The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents, the second half by our children.

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

Clarence Darrow
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.

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

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

Clarence Darrow
Those who enjoy the emotion of hating are much like the groups who sate their thirst for blood by hunting and hounding to death helpless animals as an outlet for their emotions.

Clarence Darrow
Laws have come down to us from old customs and folk-ways based on primitive ideas of man's origin, capacity and responsibility.

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. I'm not worried about my soul.

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

Clarence Darrow
No man is a good citizen, a good neighbor, a good friend, or a good man just because he obeys the law. The intrinsic worth is determined mainly by the intrinsic make-up.

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
Valiantly he fought on every intellectual battlefield. True he bowed and dodged and lied over and over again, that he still might live and work. Many of his admirers cannot forgive this in the great Voltaire. Rather they would have had him, like Bruno and Servetus, remain steadfast to his faith while his living body was consumed with flames. But, Voltaire was Voltaire, Bruno was Bruno, and Servetus was Servetus. It is not for the world to judge, but to crown them all alike. Each and all lived out their own being, did their work in their own way, and carried a reluctant, stupid humanity to greater possibilities and grander heights.

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

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

Clarence Darrow
It is just as often a great misfortune to be the child of the rich as it is to be the child of the poor. Wealth has its misfortunes. Too much, too great opportunity and advantage given to a child has its misfortunes.

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

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

Clarence Darrow
A jury is more apt to be unbiased and independent than a court, but they very seldom stand up against strong public clamor. Judges naturally believe the defendant is guilty.

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

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

Clarence Darrow
All men do the best they can. But none meet life honestly and few heroically.

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

Clarence Darrow
To disband the armies and destroy the forts, to diffuse love and brotherhood, and peace and justice in the place of war and strife, could tend only to the buidling up of character, the elevation of the soul, and the strenght and well-being of the state.

Clarence Darrow
Given a child falling into a river, an old person in a burning building, and a woman fainting in the street, a band of convicts would risk their lives to give aid as quickly at least as a band of millionaires.

Clarence Darrow
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.

Clarence Darrow