257 Quotes by Clarence Darrow

Instead of yielding to idle conversation it might profit one to cultivate silence and contemplation.

The time will come when all people will view with horror light way in which society and its courts of law now take human life; and when that time comes, the way will be clear to device some better method of dealing with poverty and ignorance and their frequent byproducts, which we call crime.

Do I need to argue to Your Honor that cruelty only breeds cruelty? That hatred only causes hatred; that if there is any way to soften this human heart which is hard enough at its best, if there is any way to kill evil and hatred and all that goes with it, it is not through evil and hatred and cruelty; it is through charity, and love, and understanding?

Education was in danger from the source that always hampered it—religious fanaticism.

To say that the universe was here last year, or millions of years ago, does not explain its origin. This is still a mystery. As to the question of the origin of things, man can only wonder and doubt and guess.

The lowest standards of ethics of which a right-thinking man can possibly conceive is taught to the common soldier whose trade is to shoot his fellow men. In youth he may have learned the command, 'Thou shalt not kill,' but the ruler takes the boy just as he enters manhood and teaches him that his highest duty is to shoot a bullet through his neighbor's heart - and this, unmoved by passion or feeling or hatred, and without the least regard to right or wrong, but simply because his ruler gives the word.

Religion is the belief in future life and in God. I don't believe in either.

Every thought of pity is like the balm of Gilead to our souls.

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