A collection of quotes about lawyers and the legal profession.
"The law is reason, free from passion." - Aristotle
"Lawyers are the foot soldiers of our Constitution." - Ronald Reagan
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." - William Shakespeare (from "Henry VI, Part 2") This quote is often misunderstood and misappplied. It is used as if Shakespeare hated lawyers. In fact, the quote is uttered by a conspirator who believes that in order for their plot to succeed, they must get rid of the lawyers in order to eliminate a functioning legal system. In other words, lawyers are the bulwark of freedom, according to Shakespeare.
"The law is a profession of words." - Mason Cooley
"A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns." - Mario Puzo (from "The Godfather")
"The good lawyer is not the man who has an eye to every side and angle of contingency, but who throws himself on your part so heartily, that he can get you out of a scrape." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free." - Henry David Thoreau
"Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law." - Oliver Goldsmith
"It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive." - Earl Warren
"Lawyers are like rhinoceroses: thick-skinned, short-sighted, and always ready to charge." - David Mellor
"The law is a profession for people who like to solve problems." - Anonymous
"A good lawyer is a great liar." - Anonymous
"The law is a complex business, and it takes a special kind of person to be able to navigate it." - Alan Dershowitz
"The law is the expression of the will of the society." - John Stuart Mill
"Justice delayed is justice denied." - William E. Gladstone
"The law is not a light for you or any man to see by; the law is not an instrument of any kind. The law is a causeway upon which, so long as he keeps to it, a citizen may walk safely." - Robert Bolt (from "A Man for All Seasons")
"The law is an ass." - Charles Dickens (from "Oliver Twist")
"Lawyers are the only persons in whom ignorance of the law is not punished." - Jeremy Bentham
"The law is a spider web, catching the little and letting the big ones get away." - Solomon Ibn Gabirol
"The law is an adroit mixture of customs that are beneficial to society, and could be followed even if no law existed, and others that are of advantage to a ruling minority, but harmful to the masses of men, and can be enforced on them only by terror." - Peter Kropotkin
"The first duty of society is justice." - Alexander Hamilton
"A lawyer is a person who writes a 10,000-word document and calls it a 'brief'." - Anonymous
"The law is a system that protects everyone equally but some people more equally than others." - Anonymous
"The law is a labyrinth, and you must find your own way through it." - Steven Brust
"The law is a shield for the powerful and a cudgel for the weak." - Molly Crabapple
"The law is like a mirror, reflecting the society it serves." - Anonymous
"The law is a tool, and like any tool, it can be used for good or ill." - Ruth Bader Ginsburg
"A lawyer's time and advice are his stock in trade." - Abraham Lincoln
"The law is a malleable construct, shaped by those with the power to wield it." - Anonymous
"The law is not justice, and a trial is not a scientific inquiry into truth." - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
"The law is a means of constraining power, not a means of exercising it." - David Korten
"The law is a bulwark against the tyranny of the powerful, and a safeguard for the rights of the weak." - Anonymous
