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
Hoover, if elected, will do one thing that is almost incomprehensible to the human mind: he will make a great man out of Coolidge.
One cannot live through a long stretch of years without forming some philosophy of life.
Justice must take account of infinite circumstances which a human being cannot understand.
If there is to be any permanent improvement in man and any better social order, it must come mainly from the education and humanizing of man.
Human action is governed largely by instinct and emotion.
The first half of our lives are ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.
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 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.
If a man really has charge of his destiny at all, he should have something to say about getting born; and I only came through by a hair's-breadth. What had I to do with this momentous first step? In the language of the lawyer, I was not even a party of the second part.
In life one cannot eat his cake and have it, too; he must make his choice and then do the best he can to be content to go the way his judgment leads.
Laws have come down to us from old customs and folk-ways based on primitive ideas of man's origin, capacity and responsibility.
I am an agnostic as to the question of God.
Autobiography is never entirely true. No one can get the right perspective on himself. Every fact is colored by imagination and dream.
Freedom comes from human beings, rather than from laws and institutions.