Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can … As a peace-maker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
As to lawyers, their profession is supported by the indiscriminate defense of right and wrong.
—Junius Unidentified English Writer
Lawyers on opposite sides of a case are like the two parts of shears; they cut what comes between them, but not each other.
—Daniel Webster (1782–1852) American Statesman, Lawyer
Lawyer, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law.
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist
The trouble with law is lawyers.
—Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American Civil Liberties Lawyer
Laws are like sausages. It is better not to see them being made.
—Otto von Bismarck (1815–98) German Chancellor, Prime Minister
Who thinks the law has anything to do with justice? It’s what we have because we can’t have justice.
—William McIlvanney (1936–2015) Scottish Novelist, Short Story Writer, Poet
Fish die when they are out of water, and people die without law and order.
—The Talmud Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith
Those laws, being forged for universal application, are in perpetual conflict with personal interest, just as personal interest is always in contradiction with the general interest. Good for society, our laws are very bad for the individuals whereof it is composed; for, if they one time protect the individual, they hinder, trouble, fetter him for three quarters of his life.
—Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) French Political leader, Revolutionary, Novelist, Poet, Critic
A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these, he may venture to call himself an architect.
—Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Lawyer
Our human laws are more or less imperfect copies of the external laws as we see them.
—James Anthony Froude (1818–94) British Historian, Novelist, Biographer, Editor
Lawyers are the only persons in whom ignorance of the law is not punished.
—Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) British Philosopher, Economist
The kind of lawyer you hope the other fellow has.
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) American Novelist
Avoid lawsuits beyond all things; they pervert your conscience, impair your health, and dissipate your property.
—Jean de La Bruyere (1645–96) French Satiric Moralist, Author
A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
Whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can commit the least act of injustice against the obscurest individual without having to pay the penalty for it.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Lawyers I suppose were children once.
—Charles Lamb (1775–1834) British Essayist, Poet
Laws, like houses, lean on one another.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
Law grinds the poor, and rich men rule the law.
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74) Irish Novelist, Playwright, Poet
I think we may class the lawyer in the natural history of monsters.
—John Keats (1795–1821) English Poet
If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.
—Charles Dickens (1812–70) English Novelist
Every actual state is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Pettifoggers in law, and empirics in medicine, whether their patients lose or save their property or their lives, take care to be, in either case, equally remunerated; they profit by both horns of the dilemma, and press defeat no less than success into their service. They hold, from time immemorial, the fee simple of a vast estate, subject to no alienation, diminution, revolution, or tax—the folly and ignorance of mankind.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
A lawyer’s dream of Heaven: Every man reclaimed his own property at the resurrection, and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers.
—Samuel Butler
It is impossible for us to break the law. We can only break ourselves against the law.
—Cecil B. DeMille (1881–1959) American Film Producer, Director
I have enforced the law against killing certain animals and many others, but the greatest progress of righteousness among men comes from the exhortation in favor of non-injury to life and abstention from killing living beings.
—Ashoka (c.304–c.232 BCE) Emperor of India
Only lawyers and painters can turn white to black.
—Japanese Proverb
I was never ruined but twice; once when I lost a lawsuit and once when I won one.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
If the laws could speak for themselves, they would complain of the lawyers.
—E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax (1881–1959) British Politician, Political leader
The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular.
—Edward Gibbon (1737–94) English Historian, Politician
Amongst the learned the lawyers claim first place, the most self-satisfied class of people, as they roll their rock of Sisyphus and string together six hundred laws in the same breath, no matter whether relevant or not, piling up opinion on opinion and gloss on gloss to make their profession seem the most difficult of all. Anything which causes trouble has special merit in their eyes.
—Desiderius Erasmus (c.1469–1536) Dutch Humanist, Scholar
Where the law is uncertain there is no law.
—Common Proverb
It is unfair to believe everything we hear about lawyers, some of it might not be true.
—Gerald F. Lieberman
Every law is an infraction of liberty.
—Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) British Philosopher, Economist
The business of the law is to make sense of the confusion of what we call human life—to reduce it to order but at the same time to give it possibility, scope, even dignity.
—Archibald MacLeish (1892–1982) American Poet, Dramatist
A jury too often has at least one member more ready to hang the panel than to hang the traitor.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
Adversaries in law strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Are not laws dangerous which inhibit the passions? Compare the centuries of anarchy with those of the strongest legalism in any country you like and you will see that it is only when the laws are silent that the greatest actions appear.
—Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) French Political leader, Revolutionary, Novelist, Poet, Critic
Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
Our demands are simple, normal, and therefore they are difficult to satisfy. All we ask is that an actor on the stage live in accordance with natural laws
—Constantin Stanislavski (1863–1938) Russian Actor, Theater Personality
When you are very angry, don’t go to a lawyer; when you are very hungry, don’t be a poet.
—Chinese Proverb
Anybody who thinks talk is cheap should get some legal advice.
—Franklin P. Jones
God wanted to chastise mankind, so he sent lawyers
—Russian Proverb
The priest’s friend loses his faith, the doctor’s his health, and the lawyer’s his fortune.
—Italian Proverb
No civilization would ever have been possible without a framework of stability, to provide the wherein for the flux of change. Foremost among the stabilizing factors, more enduring than customs, manners and traditions, are the legal systems that regulate our life in the world and our daily affairs with each other.
—Hannah Arendt (1906–75) German-American Philosopher, Political Theorist
By birth and interest lawyers belong to the people; by habit and taste to the aristocracy; and they may be looked upon as the natural bond and connecting link of the two great classes of society.—They are attached to public order beyond every other consideration, and the best security of public order is authority.—If they prize the free institutions of their country much, they value the legality of these institutions far more.—They are less afraid of tyranny than of arbitrary power.
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) French Historian, Political Scientist
To some lawyers, all facts are created equal.
—Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) American Judge
When one wanted one’s interests looking after whatever the cost, it was not so well for a lawyer to be over honest, else he might not be up to other people’s tricks.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
The spirit of moderation should also be the spirit of the lawgiver.
—Montesquieu (1689–1755) French Political Philosopher, Jurist
A country survives its legislation. That truth should not comfort the conservative nor depress the radical. For it means that public policy can enlarge its scope and increase its audacity, can try big experiments without trembling too much over the result. This nation could enter upon the most radical experiments and could afford to fail in them.
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974) American Journalist, Political Commentator, Writer