Quotes from Clarence Darrow

The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the death of wisdom.

George Everett Macdonald was] a valiant soldier for human liberty.

This book comes from the reflections and experience of more than forty years spent in court. Aside from the practice of my profession, the topics I have treated are such as have always held my interest and inspired a taste for books that discuss the human machine with its manifestations and the causes of its varied activity.

There is no such thing as justice - in or our of court.

I have always felt that doubt was the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of God was the end of wisdom.

I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure — that is all that agnosticism means.

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free.

All men have an emotion to kill; when they strongly dislike some one they involuntarily wish he was dead. I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction.

I am an Agnostic because I am not afraid to think. I am not afraid of any god in the universe who would send me or any other man or woman to hell. If there were such a being, he would not be a god; he would be a devil.

The world is made up for the most part of morons and natural tyrants, sure of themselves, strong in their own opinions, never doubting anything.

The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom.

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. I'm beginning to believe it.

Robert G. Ingersoll was a great man. a wonderful intellect, a great soul of matchless courage, one of the great men of the earth -- and yet we have no right to bow down to his memory simply because he was great. Great orators, great soldiers, great lawyers, often use their gifts for a most unholy cause. We meet to pay a tribute of love and respect to Robert G. Ingersoll because he used his matchless power for the good of man. {Darrow's eulogy for Ingersoll at his funeral}

Do you, good people, believe that Adam and Eve were created in the Garden of Eden and that they were forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge? I do. The church has always been afraid of that tree. It still is afraid of knowledge. Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas. So does whiskey. I believe in the brain of man.

Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails.

It's not bad people I fear so much as good people. When a person is sure that he is good, he is nearly hopeless; he gets cruel- he believes in punishment.

As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and if no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever.

I have suffered from being misunderstood, but I would have suffered a hell of a lot more if I had been understood.

Nothing is so loved by tyrants as obedient subjects.

Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?

History repeats itself. That's one of the things wrong with history.

A criminal is a person with predatory instincts; but, without sufficient capital to form a corporation.

To be an effective criminal defense counsel, an attorney must be prepared to be demanding, outrageous, irreverent, blasphemous, a rogue, a renegade, and a hated, isolated, and lonely person - few love a spokesman for the despised and the damned.

True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.