The pursuit of truth will set you free; even if you never catch up with it.
Nothing is so loved by tyrants as obedient subjects.
Inside every lawyer is the wreck of a poet.
My constitution was destroyed long ago; now I am living under the bylaws.
I have suffered from being misunderstood, but I would have suffered a hell of a lot more if I had been understood.
All men have an emotion to kill; when they strongly dislike someone they involuntarily wish he was dead. I have never killed anyone, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction.
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.
Men have always been obliged to fight to preserve liberty. Constitutions and laws do not safeguard liberty. It can be preserved only by a tolerant people, and this means eternal conflict.
Do you think you can cure the hatreds and the maladjustments of the world by hanging them? You simply show your ignorance and your hate when you say it. You may here and there cure hatred with love and understanding, but you can only add fuel to the flames by cruelty and hate.
Eugene V. Debs has always been one of my heroes.
Probably the undertaker thinks less of death than almost any other man. He is so accustomed to it that his mind must involuntarily turn from its horror to a contemplation of how much he makes out of the burial.
No man is a good citizen, a good neighbor, a good friend, or a good man just because he obeys the law. The intrinsic worth is determined mainly by the intrinsic make-up.
I am always suspicious of righteous indignation. Nothing is more cruel than righteous indignation.
Most lawyers only tell you about the cases they win. I can tell you about some I lose. A lawyer who wins all his cases does not have many.
Justice must take account of infinite circumstances which a human being cannot understand.
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.
Human action is governed largely by instinct and emotion.
I feel as I always have, that the earth is the home and the only home of man, and I am convinced that whatever he is to get out of his existence he must get while he is here.
Autobiography is never entirely true. No one can get the right perspective on himself. Every fact is colored by imagination and dream.
No nation can be really great that is held together by Gatling guns, and no true loyalty can be induced and kept through fear.