LAWYER QUOTES IV
quotations about lawyers
Lawyers are ideological enemies of informal justice.
RICHARD L. ABEL
Lawyers in Society
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
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
A countryman between 2 Lawyers, is like a fish between two cats.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1737
[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
How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb? How many can you afford?
BLANCHE KNOTT
Blanch Knott's Treasury of Tastelessness
Lawyers are like unrequited lovers--you give them an inch, and they go for the whole nine yards; you take off one shoe, and they pull down your pants.
ANDRES RUEDA
The Clawback
Lawyers are like that famous vampire-bat, said to exist in Hungary, which seizes on a creature, and never lets go while there is blood left.
WALTER BESANT
Dorothy Forster
Lawyers are like wine--you can pay a lot of money for a fancy bottle that tastes like vinegar, or you can find a good deal that fits your budget and your palate alike.
KAREN A. COVY
When Happily Ever After Ends
Lawyers are a bad lot.... They cheat their living out of honest people.
ALBERT R. CARMAN
Incurable!
What do you call a lawyer gone bad? Senator.
MARVIN LEBMAN
A Collection of Jokes and Funny Stories
Jury--Twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.
LENORA OLIVER
Herald, 1938
Since lawyers are thinkers and not feelers, and their moral development is locked into the rigidity of maintaining law and order, they often come across as impersonal, insensitive, amoral, and not particularly human to the clients they serve.
THANE ROSENBAUM
The Myth of Moral Justice
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
Lawyers generally know too much of law to have a very clear perception of justice.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
Lawyers are the jackals of commerce.
ELBERT HUBBARD
Fra Magazine, Sep. 1911
Lawyers enjoy a little mystery, you know. Why, if everybody came forward and told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth straight out, we should all retire to the workhouse.
DOROTHY L. SAYERS
Clouds of Witness
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
Lawyers are fleas on the hide of human nature.
STEPHEN KING
"1922", Full Dark, No Stars
Some lawyers are like unto the camel, which, before drinking out of a brook, maketh the water turbid with his foot.
ADOLPHUS WILLIAM WARD
"Abraham a Sancta Clara", Collected Papers