Clarence Darrow > Quotes

“I've never killed a man, but I've read many an obituary with a great deal of satisfaction.”
― Clarence Darrow

“If you lose the power to laugh, you lose the power to think.”
― Clarence Darrow

“The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents, the second half by our children.”
― Clarence Darrow

“I am an agnostic; I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of.”
― Clarence Darrow

“I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.”
― Clarence Darrow

“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.”
― Clarence Darrow

“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.”
― 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.
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― Clarence Darrow

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

“Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for.”
― Clarence Darrow

“To think is to differ.”
― Clarence Darrow

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”
― Clarence Darrow

“I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose.”
― Clarence Darrow

“Nothing is so loved by tyrants as obedient subjects.

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― Clarence Darrow

“I have never killed a man, but I have read many
obituaries with great pleasure.”
― Clarence Darrow

“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.”
― Clarence Darrow

“Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?”
― Clarence Darrow

“True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.”
― Clarence Darrow

“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.”
― Clarence Darrow

“Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coattails.”
― Clarence Darrow

“History repeats itself; that’s one of the things that’s wrong with history.”
― Clarence Darrow

“...when the public is interested and demands a punishment, no matter what the offense, great or small,it thinks of only one punishment, and that is death.
What about this matter of crime and punishment, anyhow?
I may know less than the rest, but I have at least tried to find out...The more men study, the more they doubt the effect of severe punishment on crime.
And yet Mr. Savage tells this court that if these boys are hanged, there will be no more murder.
Mr. Savage is an optimist. He says that if the defendants are hanged there will be no more boys like these.
I could give him a sketch of punishment. . . . You can trace it all down through the history of man. You can trace the burnings, the boiling, the drawings and quarterings, the hanging of people in England at the crossroads, carving them up and hanging them as examples for all to see.
We can come down to the last century when nearly two hundred crimes were punishable by death, and by death in every form; not only hanging—that was too humane—but burning, boiling, cutting into pieces, torturing in all conceivable forms.
You can read the stories of the hangings on a high hill, and the populace for miles around coming out to the scene, that everybody might be awed into goodness. Hanging for picking pockets—and more pockets were picked in the crowd that went to the hanging than had been known before. Hangings for murder—and men were murdered on the way there and on the way home. Hangings for poaching, hangings for everything and hangings in public, not shut up cruelly and brutally in a jail, out of the light of day, wakened in the night time and led forth and killed, but taken to the shire town on a high hill, in the presence of a multitude, so that all might see that the wages of sin were death. . . .
Gradually the laws have been changed and modified, and men look back with horror at the hangings and the killings of the past. What did they find in England? That as they got rid of these barbarous statutes crimes decreased instead of increased; as the criminal law was modified and humanized, there was less crime instead of more. I will undertake to say, your Honor, that you can scarcely find a single book written by a student—and I will include all the works on criminology of the past—that has not made the statement over and over again that as the penal code was made less terrible crimes grew less frequent. . . .
If these two boys die on the scaffold, which I can never bring myself to imagine—if they do die on the scaffold, the details of this will be spread over the world. Every newspaper in the United States will carry a full account. Every newspaper of Chicago will be filled with the gruesome details. It will enter every home and every family.
Will it make men better or make men worse? I would like to put that to the intelligence of man, at least such intelligence as they have. I would like to appeal to the feelings of human beings so far as they have feelings—would it make the human heart softer or would it make hearts harder? How many men would be colder and crueler for it? How many men would enjoy the details, and you cannot enjoy human suffering without being affected for better or for worse; those who enjoyed it would be affected for the worse.

I am pleading for life, understanding, charity, kindness, and the infinite mercy that considers all. I am pleading that we overcome cruelty with kindness and hatred with love.

I know the future is on my side.

Your Honor stands between the past and the future. You may hang these boys; you may hang them by the neck until they are dead. But in doing it you will turn your face toward the past. . . . 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, Clarence Darrow on Capital Punishment

“The purpose of man is like the purpose of a pollywog - to wiggle along as far as he can without dying; or, to hang to life until death takes him.”
― Clarence Darrow

“Sympathy is the child of imagination”
― Clarence Darrow

“You can only be free if I am free.”
― Clarence Darrow

“Some false representations contravene the law; some do not. The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business, and, besides, could not be done. The line between honesty and dishonesty is a narrow, shifting one and usually lets those get by that are the most subtle and already have more than they can use.”
― Clarence Darrow, The Story Of My Life

“Some false representations contravene the law; some do not. ... The sensibilities of no two men are the same. Some would refuse to sell property without carefully explaining all about its merits and defects, and putting themselves in the purchasers' place and inquiring if he himself would buy under the circumstances. But such men never would be prosperous merchants.”
― Clarence Darrow, The Story Of My Life