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

Categorized in : Men Character Honesty

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

Clarence Darrow

life-and-love freedom peace

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

Clarence Darrow

sarcastic funny believe

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

pain journey men

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

lonely age love

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

Clarence Darrow

memorial-day hate peace

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

Clarence Darrow

trust law doe

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

Clarence Darrow

sarcastic life death

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

garden men believe

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

hatred heart men

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

battle odds law

Nothing is so loved by tyrants as obedient subjects.

Clarence Darrow

obedient tyrants subjects

A criminal is someone without the capital to incorporate

Clarence Darrow

criminals

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

Clarence Darrow

penalties fierce helping

Inside every lawyer is the wreck of a poet.

Clarence Darrow

wrecks lawyer poet

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

atheist men religion

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

honesty courage inspirational

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

vivid-imagination life order

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

community law class

The man who fights for his fellow-man is a better man than the one who fights for himself.

Clarence Darrow

fighting fellow-man men

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

practice past years