LAWYER QUOTES III
quotations about lawyers
A countryman between 2 Lawyers, is like a fish between two cats.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1737
Lawyers are a bad lot.... They cheat their living out of honest people.
ALBERT R. CARMAN
Incurable!
People are getting smarter nowadays; they are letting lawyers, instead of their conscience, be their guide.
WILL ROGERS
"Helping the Girls with Their Income Taxes", The Illiterate Digest
We lawyers learn to study the faces of our witnesses, to form quick judgments, and to act upon them.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
A lawyer is an odd sort of fish, first rotten, then green, then ripe.
ROBERT CHRISTY
Proverbs, Maxims and Phrases
A lawyers performance in the courtroom is responsible for about 25 percent of the outcome; the remaining 75 percent depends on the facts.
MELVIN BELLI
attributed, Jar of Quotes
He who will always be his own lawyer will often have a fool for a client.
J. HUNTER
attributed, Day's Collacon
If you cannot avoid a quarrel with a blackguard, let your lawyer manage it, rather than yourself. No man sweeps his own chimney, but employs a chimney-sweeper, who has no objection to dirty work, because it is his trade.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
It is an ill cause that the lawyer thinks shame o'.
JOHN RAY
A Complete Collection of English Proverbs
Lawyer even sounds like liar.
WALTER MOSLEY
Walking the Line
Lawyers rarely test their power, or the power they promote, against this simple pragmatic question: "Will it do good?" When challenged about the expanding reach of the law, the lawyer answers, "Why not?"
LAWRENCE LESSIG
Free Culture
There must be some honest lawyers at the New York bar, and some impartial judges on the New York bench, but I should not like to be set to find them.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
I cannot believe that a republic could subsist if the influence of the lawyers in public business did not increase in proportion to the power of the people.
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
Democracy in America
I realized the true function of a lawyer was to unite parties riven asunder. The lesson was so indelibly burnt into me that a large part of my time during the twenty years of my practice as a lawyer was occupied in bringing about private compromises of hundreds of cases. I lost nothing thereby -- not even money, certainly not my soul.
MAHATMA GANDHI
An Autobiography
Jury--Twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.
LENORA OLIVER
Herald, 1938
No group has a greater responsibility today in helping maintain our free institutions of society than the lawyer. In fact, being a man of the law, he is uniquely equipped through training, outlook and experience to be a leader of his fellow citizens. American history confirms his tremendous contribution--helping draw up the basic documentation of our freedom, serving as a leader in local, state and national government, participating in the affairs of community life. At this hour, America especially needs the leadership of the lawyer. The moral fabric of our Nation is badly torn. Disrespect for law and order is widespread. The very principles of free government are being scorned and perverted. Flouting the law has almost become a hobby for some individuals.
J. EDGAR HOOVER
Texas Bar Journal, Feb. 22, 1964
The Post Office just recalled their newest stamps: They had a picture of lawyers on them ... and people couldn't figure out which side to spit on.
MARVIN LEBMAN
A Collection of Jokes and Funny Stories
Why don't you ever hear of a lawyer getting attacked by a shark at the beach? Professional courtesy.
THOMAS F. SHUBNELL
Greatest Jokes of the Century
[The Utopians] have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters and to wrest the laws, and, therefore, they think it is much better that every man should plead his own cause, and trust it to the judge, as in other places the client trusts it to a counsellor; by this means they both cut off many delays and find out truth more certainly; for after the parties have laid open the merits of the cause, without those artifices which lawyers are apt to suggest, the judge examines the whole matter, and supports the simplicity of such well-meaning persons, whom otherwise crafty men would be sure to run down; and thus they avoid those evils which appear very remarkably among all those nations that labour under a vast load of laws.
SIR THOMAS MORE
Utopia
Americans see lawyers as obstructionists, as defenders of murderers.... In reality, lawyers are the glue that holds society together. Without lawyers ... without law, you have anarchy.
BILL CUNNINGHAM
Cincinnati Magazine, Sep. 1992