Top 186 Quotes & Sayings by Clarence Darrow

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.

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

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.

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

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

To think is to differ.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

I do not believe in God because I do not believe in Mother Goose.

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

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.

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

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

You can only be free if I am free.

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

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

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom.

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

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

The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are drifting side by side to our common doom.

No other offense has ever been visited with such severe penalties as seeking to help the oppressed.

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

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

I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure - that is all that agnosticism means.

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

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

None meet life honestly and few heroically.

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

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

Depressions may bring people closer to the church but so do funerals.

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

Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for.

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

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.

The trouble with law is lawyers.

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

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.

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.

A criminal is someone without the capital to incorporate

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Nothing is so loved by tyrants as obedient subjects.

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.

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

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.

I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction.

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