 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Home |
Credits |
Cast |
1 |
2 |
3 |
Reviews |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Home |
Credits |
Cast |
1 |
2 |
3 |
Reviews |
|
|
 . . . LAW (THE) / LAWS see "CRIME & PUNISHMENT" for related links - We find, in the rules laid down by the greatest English judges, who have been the brightest of mankind; we are to look upon it as more beneficial, that many guilty persons should escape unpunished, than one innocent person should suffer. The reason is, because it is of more importance to the community, that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in the world, that all of them cannot be punished; and many times they happen in such a manner, that it is not of much consequence to the public, whether they are punished or not. But when innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, it is immaterial to me whether I behave well or ill, for virtue itself is no security. And if such a sentiment as this should take place in the mind of the subject, there would be an end to all security whatsoever. --John Adams (17351826) First VP and second President of the United States. In Frederic Kidder _History of the Boston Massacre_ [1870]. In every society where property exists, there will ever be a struggle between rich and poor. Mixed in one assembly, equal laws can never be expected. They will either be made by numbers, to plunder the few who are rich, or by influence, to fleece the many who are poor. --John Adams (17351826) First VP and second President of the United States, _A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America_ [17871788] - Wrong must not win by technicalities. --Aeschylus (525456 B.C.) Greek tragic dramatist. _The Eumenides_ [458 BC] Written laws are like spider's webs; they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor, but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful. --Anacharsis (600 BC) Scythian prince. In Plutarch _Parallel Lives_ "Solon". Bring in the guilty bastard. We'll give him a fair trial, and then we'll hang him. --Roy Bean (18251903) American jurist. - Lawyer, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law. --Ambrose Bierce (18421914) American newspaperman, wit, and satirist. _The Cynic's Word Book_ [1906] (Retitled in 1911 as _The Devil's Dictionary_.) Litigation, n. A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage. --Ambrose Bierce (18421914) American newspaperman, wit, and satirist. _The Cynic's Word Book_ [1906] (Retitled in 1911 as _The Devil's Dictionary_.) - MARGARET: Father, that man's bad. MORE: There is no law against that. ROPER: There is! God's law! MORE: Then God can arrest him. ROPER: Sophistication upon sophistication! MORE: No, sheer simplicity. The law, Roper, the law. I know what's legal not what's right. And I'll stick to what's legal. ROPER: Then you set man's law above God's! MORE: No, far below; but let me draw your attention to a fact I'm _not_ God. The currents and eddies of right and wrong, which you find such plain sailing, I can't navigate. I'm no voyager. But in the thickets of the law, oh, there I'm a forester. I doubt if there's a man alive who could follow me there, thank God... ALICE (Exasperated): While you talk, he's gone! MORE: And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law! ROPER: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law! MORE: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? ROPER: I'd cut down every law in England to do that! MORE (Roused and excited): Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast man's laws, not God's and if you cut them down and you're just the man to do it d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake. --Robert Bolt (19241995) English playwright and screenwriter. "A Man for All Seasons" [1960] - What we call conscience, in many instances, is only a wholesome fear of the constable. --Christian Nestell Bovee (18201904) American writer. - If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal would bring terrible retribution. --Louis Brandeis (18561941) American lawyer and associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court [19161939]. Dissenting in _Olmstead v. United States_ [1928]. If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable. --Louis Brandeis (18561941) American lawyer and associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court [19161939]. - Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny. --Edmund Burke (17291797) Irish-born Whig politician and man of letters. Speech at the Guildhall, Bristol, England [6 September 1780]. All bad precedents begin with justifiable measures. --Gaius Julius Caesar (100 B.C.44 B.C.) Roman military and political leader. Quoted in Sallust, _The Conspiracy of Catiline_. No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion. --Carrie Chapman Catt (18591947) American women's suffrage leader. "Why We Ask for the Submission of an Amendment," speech in Senate hearing on woman's suffrage [13 February 1900]. - We are slaves of the law in order that we may be able to be free. --Marcus Tullius Cicero (10643 BC) Roman orator and statesman. More laws, less justice. --Marcus Tullius Cicero (10643 BC) Roman orator and statesman. [Silent enim leges inter arma.] Laws are silent in times of war. --Marcus Tullius Cicero (10643 BC) Roman orator and statesman. "Pro Milone", ch. II - I don't want to know what the law is, I want to know who the judge is. --Roy Cohn (19271986) American lawyer. Favorite saying, quoted by Tom Wolfe in _New York Times Book Review_ [3 April 1988]. One with the law is a majority. --Calvin Coolidge (18721933) American Republican statesman and President [19231929]. In his acceptance speech upon nomination for the vice-presidency, Republican National Convention [27 July 1920]. - As a 16th-century English judge declared, "If a debtor can't feed and clothe himself, let him die, in the name of God, if he will and impute the cause of it to his own fault, for his presumption and ill behavior brought him to that imprisonment." [. . . ] Indeed, when some large speculative financial schemes collapsed after the Revolutionary War, many wealthy men were suddenly bankrupt. One of them, Robert Morris, who had signed the Declaration of Independence and provided critical financing for the war, lost his fortune speculating on land. Sentenced to debtors' prison in Philadelphia in 1798, Morris rented the best room in the jail and outfitted it with a settee, writing desks, a bed, a trunk of clothes and other comforts of home. However lavishly they could outfit their prison cells, though, rich and poor faced the same dim future. There was no way an insolvent could get a fresh start the "holy grail of debt relief," as Mr. Mann put it. In prison or out, debtors were expected to repay every penny they owed their creditors, even if it took them the rest of their lives. --Cynthia Crossen "Early Debtors Faced Jail at Own Expense Until All Was Repaid" _Wall Street Journal_ [30 January 2006] The Waterloo, Neb., city council in 1910 passed an ordinance making it illegal for barbers "to discuss the gossip of the town" with their customers. The ordinance also prohibited barbers from eating onions between the hours of 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. and from sticking their fingers in the mouths of their customers. --Cynthia Crossen "Gossip: So Much Fun People Once Tried To Make It Illegal" _The Wall Street Journal_ [4 June 2007] - I am free as Nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran. --John Dryden (16311700) English poet, critic, and dramatist. _The Conquest of Granada_ [16691670] , pt. I, act I, sc. i An appeal, Hinnissy, is where ye ask wan court to show its contempt f'r another coort. --Finley Peter Dunne (18671936) American journalist and humorist. _Mr. Dooley Says_ "The Big Fine" [1907] The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this. --Albert Einstein (18791955) German-American physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. _Ideas and Opinions_ [1954] They hang the man and flog the woman That steal the goose from off the common, But let the greater villain loose That steals the common from the goose. --English folk poem [c. 1764] The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. --Anatole France [Jacques Anatole Thibault] (18441924) French novelist, man of letters, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1921. _Le Lys rouge_ (The Red Lily) [1894] There is something monstrous in commands couched in invented and unfamiliar language; an alien master is the worst of all. The language of the law must not be foreign to the ears of those who are to obey it. --Learned Hand (18721961) American judge. Speech in Washington, DC [11 May 1929]. I think it should be a law that if you ever get sucked up into a tornado, whatever you can grab with your hands while you're swirling around up there, you get to keep. --Jack Handey (1949 ) American comedian and comedy writer. _The Lost Deep Thoughts_ [1998] The attacks upon the [Supreme] Court are merely an expression of the unrest that seems to wonder vaguely whether law and order pay. When the ignorant are taught to doubt, they do not know what they safely may believe. --Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (18411935) Justice of the United States Supreme Court, legal historian, and philosopher. _Law and the Court_ [1913] How amazing it is that, in the midst of controversies on every conceivable subject, one should expect uninamity of opinion upon difficult legal questions! . . . The history of scholarship is a record of disagreements. And when we deal with questions relating to principles of law and their applications, we do not suddenly rise into a stratosphere of icy certainty. --Charles Evans Hughes (18621948) American professor of law, politician, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court [19301941]. Speech to the American Law Institute [7 May 1936]. - Japanese ships are strictly forbidden to leave for foreign countries. No Japanese is permitted to go abroad. If there is anyone who attempts to do so secretly, he must be executed. The ship so involved must be impounded and its owner arrested, and the matter must be reported to the higher authority. If any Japanese returns from overseas after residing there, he must be put to death. --Tokugawa Iemitsu (16041651) Third shogun of the Tokugawa dynasty who reigned from 1623 to 1651. Edicts 1, 2, and 3 [1635]. - Ignorance of the law is no excuse, in any country. If it were, the laws would lose their effect, because it can always be pretended. --Thomas Jefferson (17431826) American statesman and president [18011809]. In a letter to Andrι Limozin [22 December 1787]. - It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me. But it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important. --Martin Luther King, Jr. (19291968) American civil rights leader. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law. --Martin Luther King, Jr. (19291968) American civil rights leader. We can never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." --Martin Luther King, Jr. (19291968) American civil rights leader. "Letter from Birmingham Jail" [16 April 1963] - The sentry who is inattentive will be killed. The arrow-messenger who gets drunk will be killed. Anyone who harbors a fugitive will be killed. The warrior who unlawfully appropriates booty for himself will be killed. The leader who is incompetent will be killed. --Laws, late 12th and early 13th centuries; in Michael Hoang _Genghis Khan_ [1988] - - It's true! It's true! The crown has made it clear: The climate must be perfect all the year. A law was made a distant moon ago here, July and August cannot be too hot; And there's a legal limit to the snow here In Camelot. The winter is forbidden till December, And exits March the second on the dot. By order Summer lingers through September In Camelot. Camelot! Camelot! I know it sounds a bit bizarre; But in Camelot, Camelot That's how conditions are. The rain may never fall till after sundown, By eight the morning fog must disappear. In short, there's simply not A more congenial spot For happ'ly-ever-aftering than here In Camelot. Camelot! Camelot! I know it gives a person pause, But in Camelot, Camelot Those are the legal laws. The snow may never slush upon the hillside. By nine P.M. the moonlight must appear. In short, there's simply not A more congenial spot For happ'ly-ever-aftering than here In Camelot. Each evening from December to December Before you drift to sleep upon your cot, Think back on all the tales that you remember Of Camelot. Ask ev'ry person if he's heard the story, And tell it strong and clear if he has not: That once there was a fleeting wisp of glory Called Camelot. Camelot! Camelot! Now say it out with love and joy! Camelot! Camelot! Yes, Camelot, my boy ... Where once it never rained till after sundown; By eight A.M. the morning fog had flown ... Don't let it be forgot That once there was a spot For one brief shining moment that was known As Camelot. --Lerner & Loewe "Camelot" 1960 song from the stage production of the same name. - You must remember that some things that are *legally* right are not *morally* right. --Abraham Lincoln (18091865) American Republican statesman, President [18611865]. Remark to a prospective client refusing to take his case (involving a $600 claim) against a widow with six children, 1840s?. In Francis Fisher Browne, _The Every-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln_, 2.6 [1887]. The only law which is really lived up to wholeheartedly and with a vengeance is the law of conformity. --Henry Miller (18911980) American novelist and essayist. _The Time of the Assassins: A Study of Rimbaud_, 1 [1946] - We should never create by law what can be accomplished by morality. --Baron de Montesquieu (Charles Louis de Secondat) (16891755) French philosopher, jurist, and satirist. Useless laws weaken the necessary laws. --Baron de Montesquieu (Charles Louis de Secondat) (16891755) French philosopher, jurist, and satirist. _De l'Esprit des Lois_ [1748] - 1. The king must never appear in public except when the occasion is extremely important and unavoidable ... 2. Only the king and the prime minister Tlacaelel may wear sandals within the palace ... 7. The commoners will not be allowed to wear cotton clothing, under pain of death ... 8. Only great noblemen and valiant warriors are given licence to build a house with a second storey; for disobeying this law a person receives the death sentence ... 14. There is to be a rigorous law regarding adulterers. They are to be stoned and thrown into rivers or to the buzzards. --Montezuma I (c.13981469) Emperor of the Mexican people from 1440-1468. In Michael E. Smith _The Aztecs_ [1996], p. 52. Yes, there's such a thing as luck in trial law but it only comes at 3 o'clock in the morning. . . . You'll still find me in the library looking for luck at 3 o'clock in the morning. --Louis Nizer (19021994) English-born American lawyer. These detective series on TV always end at precisely the right moment after the criminal is arrested and before the court turns him loose. --Robert Orben (1927- ) American magician and comedy writer. If, therefore, in the examination of this Cause, the Evidence is not sufficient to Convince you beyond reasonable doubt of the guilt of all or of any of the Prisoners by the Benignity and Reason of the Law, you will acquit them. --Robert Treat Paine (17311814) American politician. Closing argument in Boston Massacre Trial, Boston, Mass. [1770]. Where law ends, tyranny begins. --William Pitt, the Elder, also called (from 1766) 1st Earl of Chatham (17081778) British statesman, twice virtual prime minister [17561761, 17661768]. First of all, then, Solon repealed all Draco's laws because of their harshness and the excessively heavy penalties they carried; the only exceptions were the laws relating to homicide. Under the Draconian code almost any offense was liable to the death penalty, so that even those convicted of idleness were executed, and those who stole fruit or vegetables suffered the same punishment as those who committed sacrilege or murder. This is the reason why, in later times, Demades became famous for his remark that Draco's code was written not in ink but in blood. Draco himself, when he was once asked why he had decreed the death penalty for the great majority of offenses, replied that he considered the minor ones deserved it, and so for the major ones no heavier punishment was left. --Plutarch (A.D. 46?119?) Greek philosopher and biographer. _Parallel Lives_ "Solon", in M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.} _History in Quotations_ [2004]. A man's respect for law and order exists in precise relationship to the size of his paycheck. --Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (19081972) American public official, pastor, and prominent civil-rights leader. _Keep the Faith, Baby!_ [1967] No man is above the law and no man below it; nor do we ask any man's permission when we require him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not asked as a favor. --Theodore Roosevelt (18581919) American Republican statesman and President [19011909]. Annual Message [1903] Ignorance of the law excuses no man; not that all men know the law, but because 'tis an excuse every man will plead, and no man can tell how to confute him. --John Selden (15841654) English historian. _Table Talk_ "Law" [1689] There is as much chance of repealing the Eighteenth Amendment [prohibition] as there is for a humming-bird to fly to the planet Mars with the Washington Monument tied to its tail. --Morris Sheppard (18751941) American politician - served as U.S. Senator from Texas [19131941]. Laws are like Cobwebs, which may catch small Flies, but let Wasps and Hornets break through. --Jonathan Swift (16671745) Anglo-Irish poet and satirist. _A Critical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind_ [1707] The more corrupt the State the more numerous the laws. --Tacitus [or Publius Cornelius Tacitus or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus] (c.55c.117), Roman orator, lawyer, senator, and historian. No tendency is quite so strong in human nature as the desire to lay down rules of conduct for other people. --William Howard Taft (18571930) 27th President of the United States [19091913] and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court [19211930]. - What do I care about the law? Hain't I got the power? --Cornelius Vanderbilt (17941877) American shipping and railroad magnate. Quoted in Matthew Josephson _The Robber Barons_ [1934]. [Comment in letter:] Gentlemen: You have undertaken to cheat me. I will not sue you, for law takes too long. I will ruin you. --Cornelius Vanderbilt (17941877) American shipping and railroad magnate. Quoted in Matthew Josephson _The Robber Barons_ [1934]. - If someone rapes a boyar's [member of the old aristocracy's] daughter or a boyar's wife [then he is to pay] 5 grivnas [coins] of gold for the dishonour, and 5 grivnas of gold to the bishop; and if she be [a daughter or a wife] of lesser boyars 1 grivna of gold, and 1 grivna of gold to the bishop ... [if she be a daughter or wife] of common people, 15 grivnas [of fur] to her and 15 grivnas [of fur] to the bishop. --Yaroslav I {Yaroslav the Wise} (9801054) Grand prince of Kiev. In M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds} _History in Quotations_ [2004]. If a Ripuarian kills a Frankish foreigner, let him be held liable for 200 solidi ... 3, If a Ripuarian kills a Roman foreigner, let him be fined twice 50 solidi ... 5 If anyone kills a freeborn clerk, let him be held liable for twice 50 solidi 8. If anyone kills a free-born priest [or bishop], let him be fined thrice 200 solidi. 10. If anyone kills the foetus within a woman or a newborn before he has a name, let him be held liable for twice 50 solidi. If he kills the mother along with the foetus, let him be fined 700 solidi. --_The Laws of the Salian and Ripuarian Franks_ (5th or 6th century; 1986 trans.) Ripuarian pt. 40, in M.J. Cohan and John Major {ed.} _History in Quotations_ [2004]. Cohan & Major note: The blood-feud was a feature of barbarian life. All law codes included wergeld, a price by which the taking of life could be redeemed without further killing. The social status of the victim affected the price. - If anyone should administer a potion to a pregnant woman to produce an abortion, and the child should die in consequence, the woman who took such a potion, if she is a slave, shall receive two hundred lashes, and if she is freeborn, she shall lose her rank, and shall be given as a slave to whomever we [the king] may select. --_The Visigothic Code_ (Forum Judicum) (mid-7th century; 1910 trans.) p.206, quoted in M.J. Cohan and John Major {ed.} _History in Quotations_ [2004]. - Three Philadelphia lawyers are a match for the devil. --popular saying, early 19th century ----- depose (verb) [dee-'poz] 1: To remove from office or power. 2: To state or affirm in a legal affidavit (deposition). desuetude [DES-wih-tood, -tyood], noun: The cessation of use; discontinuance of practice or custom; disuse. Ex.: Probably only one in a hundred girls who give birth clandestinely even knows that an edict of King Henry II, now fallen into desuetude, once made their action punishable by death. --Nina Rattner Gelbart, _The King's Midwife_ draconian (adj.) [drκ -'ko-ni-yκn] Relating to painfully harsh or severe measures. Etymology: From Greek drakon "dragon" which was also the family name of Draco, archon of Athens in 621 B.C., known for his harsh laws. fiat (noun) A legally binding command or decision entered on the court record (as if issued by a court or judge). Synonyms: decree, edict, rescript, order litigious (adj.) [li-'ti-jκs] (1) Related to litigation, law suits; (2) Given to filing law suits, inclined to sue with little provocation. scofflaw (noun) ['skahf-la or -law] Someone who scoffs or shows contempt for the law, a law-breaker. Etymology: In 1923 a wealthy prohibitionist, Delcevare King of Quincy, Massachusetts, offered $200 for a word that would best describe "a lawless drinker of illegally made or illegally obtained liquor." On January 15, 1924 the Boston Herald declared "scofflaw" the winner.  ;void(0)) LAWYERS . . see "CRIME & PUNISHMENT" for related links see "WORK" for related links I get paid for seeing that my clients have every break the law allows. I have knowingly defended a number of guilty men. But the guilty never escape unscathed. My fees are sufficient punishment for anyone. --F. Lee Bailey (1933 ) American lawyer. _Los Angeles Times_ [9 January 1972] Woe to you, teachers of the law ... you hypocrites! ...You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being ondemned to hell? --Bible "Matthew" 23:29-33 It is an honorable calling that you have chosen. Some of you will soon be defending poor, helpless insurance companies who are constantly being sued by greedy, vicious widows and orphans trying to collect on their policies. Others will work tirelessly to protect frightened, beleaguered oil companies from being attacked by depraved consumer groups. --Art Buchwald (19252007) American journalist and humorist who won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Outstanding Commentary. Commencement address, Tulane University School of Law. We have the heaviest concentration of lawyers on Earth one for every five hundred Americans, three times as many as are in England, four times as many as are in West Germany, twenty-one times as many as there are in Japan. We have more litigation, but I am not sure that we have more justice. No resources of talent and training in our own society, even including the medical care, is more wastefully or unfairly distributed than legal skills. Ninety percent of our lawyers serve 10 percent of our people. We are over-lawyered and under- represented. --Jimmy Carter (1924 ) American Democratic statesman, President [19771981]. Remarks at L.A. County Bar Association, Los Angeles, Ca. [4 May 1978]. - You cannot live without the lawyers, and certainly you cannot die without them. --Joseph H. Choate (18321917) American lawyer and diplomat. "The Bench and the Bar" [Speech in N.Y.C., 13 May 1879]. There are two kinds of lawyers one who knows the law, the other who knows the judge. --Joseph H. Choate (18321917) American lawyer and diplomat. Quoted in Arthur Train _Mr. Tutt Comes Home_ [1941]. - - Judge Willis: What do you suppose I am on the Bench for, Mr Smith? F. E. Smith: It is not for me, Your Honour, to attempt to fathom the inscrutable workings of Providence. Judge: I am no wiser now than when you began summing up. F E Smith: Possibly not My Lord; but better informed. Judge Willis tried to think of a decisive retort. At last it arrived. 'Mr. Smith, have you ever heard of a saying by Baconthe great Bacon that youth and discretion are ill-wedded companions?' 'Yes, I have,' came the instant repartee. 'And have you ever heard of a saying of Baconthe great Baconthat a much-talking judge is like an ill-tuned cymbal?' 'You are extremely offensive, young man,' exclaimed the judge. 'As a matter of fact,' said Smith, 'we both are; but I am trying to be, and you can't help it.' Such a dialogue would be held brilliant in a carefully-written play, but that these successvie rejoinders, each more smashing than the former, should have leapt into being upon the spur of the moment is astounding. ... --Winston Churchill (18741965) British Conservative statesman. "F. E. First Earl of Birkenhead," in _Great Contemporaries_ [1937] - When you have no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff. --Marcus Tullius Cicero (10643 BC) Roman orator and statesman. [Lawyers] are plants that will grow in any soil that is cultivated by the hands of others; and when once they have taken root they will extinguish every other vegetable that grows around them. The fortunes they daily acquire, in every province, from the misfortunes of their fellow citizens, are surprising! The most ignorant, the most bungling member of that profession , will, if placed in the most obscure part of the country, promote litigiousness, and amass more wealth, without labor, than the most opulent farmer with all his toils. --Michel Guillaume Jean de Crθvecoeur (17351813) French-born American agriculturalist, writer, and diplomat. _Letters from an American Farmer_, Letter 7 [1782] Lawyers and painters can soon change white to black. --Danish proverb - True, we build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state. --John W. Davis (18731955) (Wall Street lawyer and 1924 Democratic candidate for President). Speech in New York, N.Y. [16 March 1946]. - God works wonders now and then; Behold! a Lawyer, an honest Man. --Benjamin Franklin (17061790) American politician, inventor, and scientist. _Poor Richard's Almanack_ [December 1733] A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer. --Robert Frost (18741963) American poet. Attributed in Evan Esar _The Dictionary of Humorous Quotations_ [1949]. [Lawyer to potential client:] You have a pretty good case, Mr. Pitkin. How much justice can you afford? --J.B. Handelsman (1940 ) American cartoonist. Cartoon caption in _New Yorker_ [24 December 1973]. Johnson observed that, 'he did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an *attorney.*' --Samuel Johnson (17091784) English poet, critic, and lexicographer. In James Boswell, _The Life of Samuel Johnson_ (Entry of 1770) [1791]. Lawyers, I suppose, were children once. --Charles Lamb (17751834) English essayist. _Essays of Elia_ "The Old Benchers of the Inner Termple" [1823] ^ Abraham Lincoln (18091865) American statesman; 16th President of the United States [18611865] In his legal practice Lincoln was never greedy for fees and discouraged unnecessary litigation. A man came to him in a passion, asking him to bring a suit for $2.50 against an impoverished debtor. Lincoln tried to dissuade him, but the man was determined upon revenge. When he saw that the creditor was not to be put off, Lincoln asked for and got $10 as his legal fee. He gave half of this to the defendant, who thereupon willingly confessed to the debt and paid up the $2.50, thus settling the matter to the entire satisfaction of the irate plaintiff. --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ Every defendant is entitled to a trial in which his interests are vigorously and conscientiously advocated by an able lawyer. A proceeding in which the defendant does not receive meaningful assistance in meeting the forces of the state does not in my opinion, constitute due process. --Thurgood Marshall (19081993) American jurist and first African-American to serve on the Supreme Court [19671991]. _Strickland v. Washington_ [1984] A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client. --"Port folio" (Philadelphia) [August 1809] A lawyer with a briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns. --Mario Puzo (1920 ) American novelist. _The Godfather_, ch. I [1969] A man who never graduated from school might steal from a freight car. But a man who attends college and graduates as a lawyer might steal the whole railroad. --Theodore Roosevelt (18581919) American Republican statesman and President [19011909]. (Attempting to persuade his son to become a lawyer.) Why is there always a secret singing When a lawyer cashes in? Why does a hearse horse snicker Hauling a lawyer away? --Carl Sandburg (18781967) American poet. "The Lawyers Know Too Much" _Smoke and Steel_ [1920] Dick The Butcher: The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. --William Shakespeare (15641616) English dramatist. _Henry VI_, Part II, 4.2.84 [1592] Note: This line is spoken by a would-be tyrant and, as such, cannot be construed as a condemnation of lawyers but rather, as supporting them. ^ F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead (18721930), British barrister and Conservative politician. Smith once cross-examined a young man claiming damages for an arm injury caused by the negligence of a bus driver. 'Will you please show us how high you can lift your arm now?' asked Smith. The young man gingerly raised his arm to shoulder level, his face distorted with pain. 'Thank you,' said Smith. 'And now, please will you show us how high you could lift it before the accident?' The young man eagerly shot his arm up above his head. He lost his case. --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ [The ideal client is] the very wealthy man in very great trouble. --John W. Sterling (18441918) American lawyer. Quoted in "American Bar Association Journal" [April 1960]. - For most of my career, I was part of the problem. I reported on statistically insignificant threats poisonous lawn chemicals ("Danger in the Grass"), exploding coffeemakers ("Brewing Disaster"). Crusading lawyers and environmental activists got me to do stories frightening people about secondhand smoke and suggesting that Hartz Mountain flea collars were killing kittens and puppies. Those stories make me cringe today, but at the time, I took the "safety" lawyers at their word. They were the good guys out to serve the public. They described themselves as "public interest" advocates, and I wanted to believe them because the activists had long hair and wore blue jeans just like me. By contrast, business was run by men in suits who would do just about anything to get rich. It took me too long to realize that the activists have selfish agendas, too. They want to be famous, or feel morally superior. And scaring people helps them raise money. Eventually I started to wonder if our eager coverage of the activists' accusations did more harm than good. Weren't we distorting the public's understanding of what's really risky? Risk takers built America. But today many of us seem almost paralyzed by fear. --John Stossel (1947 ) American television journalist and author. _Give Me A Break_ [2005] - Laws are best explained, interpreted and applied by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding and eluding them. --Jonathan Swift (16671745) Anglo-Irish poet and satirist. A lawyer one day spoke to him [Mark Twain] with his hands in his pockets. 'Is it not a curious sight to see a lawyer with his hands in his *own* pockets?' remarked the humorist in his quiet drawl. --According to Fred R. Shapiro (ed.) in _The Yale Book of Quotations_, p. 782 [2006] this incident was reported by Max O'Rell in _Jonathan and His Continent_ [1889]. Next to the confrontation between two highly trained, finely honed batteries of lawyers, jungle warfare is a stately minuet. --Bill Veeck (19141986) Baseball team owner & innovator. _The Hustler's Handbook_ [1965] A man without money needs no more fear a crowd of lawyers than a crowd of pick-pockets. --William Wycherley (c.16401716) English dramatist. - I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. After that, law school was pretty much a given. --cowboy, in a "New Yorker" cartoon An incompetent lawyer can delay a lawsuit for years. A competent one can delay one a lot longer. --anon. --- For three years the young attorney had been taking brief vacations at a country inn. The last time he'd finally managed an affair with the innkeeper's daughter. Looking forward to an exciting few days, he dragged his suitcase up the stairs of the inn, then stopped short. There sat his lover with an infant on her lap. "Helen, why didn't you write when you learned you were pregnant?" he cried. "I would have rushed up here, we could have been married, and the baby would have my name!" "Well," she said, "when my folks found out about my condition, we sat up all night talkin' and talkin' and decided it would be better to have a bastard in the family than a lawyer." - America has 281 lawyers for every 100,000 people, compared to Britain with 94, 33 in France, and a mere 7 in Japan. Americans have a proper contempt for the vast mass of lawyers. --"The Economist" p. 35 [16 December 2000] - This transcript is from Birmingham, Alabama, although the use of a deposition of a party opponent "for any purpose" is also in the federal rules. We have no word on what had happened immediately prior to this exchange: The Court: Next witness. Ms. Olschner: Your Honor, at this time I would like to swat Mr. Buck in the head with his client's deposition. The Court: You mean read it? Ms. Olschner: No, sir. I mean to swat him [in] the head with it. Pursuant to Rule 32, I may use the deposition "for any purpose" and that is the purpose for which I want to use it. The Court: Well, it does say that. (Pause.) The Court: There being no objection, you may proceed. Ms. Olschner: Thank you, Judge Hanes. (Whereupon Ms. Olschner swatted Mr. Buck in the head with a deposition.) Mr. Buck: But Judge... The Court: Next witness. Mr. Buck: We object. The Court: Sustained. Next witness. End transcript. -- A woman who says she was attacked by a squirrel while leaving a Chicago center in 2004 is filing a lawsuit against the mall. Marcy Meckler claims she was leaving Tiffany's when a squirrel attacked her leg. She is accusing mall management of enabling the squirrel by feeding it and failing to notify her of the creature's presence. --News blurb [24 August 2006] -- A blonde and a lawyer sat next to each other on a plane. The lawyer asked her to play a game. If he asked her a question that she didn't know the answer to, she would have to pay him five dollars; and every time the blonde asked the lawyer a question that he didn't know the answer to, the lawyer had to pay the blonde 50 dollars. So the lawyer asked the blonde his first question, "What is the distance between the Earth and the nearest star?" Without a word the blonde paid the lawyer five dollars. The blonde then asked him, "What goes up a hill with four legs and down a hill with three?" The lawyer thought about it, but finally gave up and paid the blonde 50 dollars. Then the lawyer asked her what the answer was and without a word the blonde gave the lawyer five dollars. -- Dad and young son were in a cemetary looking at headstones. The boy says, "Why do they bury two people in a grave, Daddy?" The daddy says, "Don't be ridiculous, son. They don't do that." "But Daddy," replied the boy, "it says right here, here lies so-and-so, a lawyer and an honest man." ----- pettifogger (noun) 1. A lawyer whose methods are petty, underhanded, or disreputable. 2. One given to quibbling over trifles. shyster (noun) An unscrupulous person, especially a lawyer or political representative (slang insult) end page | KARMA - KENTUCKY | KINDNESS | KILL - KU KLUX KLAN | KNOWLEDGE | LABELS - LAS VEGAS | LANGUAGE | LATIN - LAUGHTER | LAW (THE) - LAWYERS | LAZINESS - LEGACY | LEARNING | LEISURE - LIBERALS | LIBERTY - LIES | LIFE | LIFESTYLE - LIMITATIONS | LINCOLN (ABRAHAM) - LITTERING | LIVE - LONDON | LONELINESS - LOUISIANA | LOVE - PAGE 1 (A-L) | LOVE - PAGE 2 (M-Z) | LOVE & MARRIAGE - LYNCHING | | H | I - J | K - L | M | N - O | P - Q | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The Reviews | |
||