Clarence Darrow
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Seward Darrowwas an American lawyer, leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, and prominent advocate for Georgist economic reform. He was best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks. Some of his other notable cases included defending Ossian Sweet, and John T. Scopes in the Scopes "Monkey" Trial, in which he opposed William Jennings Bryan. Called a "sophisticated country lawyer", he remains notable for his wit, which...
ProfessionLawyer
Date of Birth18 April 1857
CityKinsman, OH
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.
A criminal is someone without the capital to incorporate
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 don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose.
You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom.
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.
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.
When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it.
True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.
I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.
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.
First and last, it's a question of money. Those men who own the earth make the laws to protect what they have. They fix up a sort of fence or pen around what they have, and they fix the law so the fellow on the outside cannot get in. The laws are really organized for the protection of the men who rule the world. They were never organized or enforced to do justice. We have no system for doing justice, not the slightest in the world.
The origin of the human race is not as blind a subject as it once was. Let alone God creating Adam out of hand, from the dust of the earth, does anyone believe that Eve was made from Adam's rib...?
History repeats itself, and that's one of the things that's wrong with history