Charles Dickens Quotes About Lawyers

• If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.

  Charles Dickens

  Funny, Law, People

  Charles Dickens (1848). “The Old Curiosity Shop ... With a Frontispiece. From a Painting by Geo. Cattermole, Etc”, p.255

• The one great principle of English law is to make business for itself.

  Charles Dickens

  Law, Principles, Bleak House

  Bleak House ch. 39 (1853)

• It is a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr. Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.

  Charles Dickens

  Law, People, Would Be

  Charles Dickens (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Charles Dickens (Illustrated)”, p.2312, Delphi Classics

• Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit, has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means. The parties to it understand it least; but it has been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes, without coming to total disagreement as to all the premises.

  Charles Dickens

  Party, Mean, Men

  Bleak House ch. 1 (1853)

• We lawyers are always curious, always inquisitive, always picking up odds and ends for our patchwork minds, since there is no knowing when and where they may fit into some corner.

  Charles Dickens

  Knowing, Odds, Mind

  Charles Dickens (1872). “A Cyclopedia of the Best Thoughts of Charles Dickens”, p.267

• Keep out of Chancery. It's being ground to bits in a slow mill; it's being roasted at a slow fire; it's being stung to death by single bees; it's being drowned by drops; it's going mad by grains.

  Charles Dickens

  Death, Fire, Law

  Charles Dickens (1853). “Bleak house. [20 numbers in 19 monthly pts., orig. wrappers.].”, p.38

• But the mere truth won't do. You must have a lawyer.

  Charles Dickens

  Law, Lawyer, Mere

  "Bleak House".

• Lawyers are shy of meddling with the Law on their own account: knowing it to be an edged tool of uncertain application, very expensive in the working, and rather remarkable for its properties of close shaving than for its always shaving the right person.

  Charles Dickens

  Law, Knowing, Shaving

  Charles Dickens (1848). “The Old Curiosity Shop ... With a Frontispiece. From a Painting by Geo. Cattermole, Etc”, p.168

• Battledore and shuttlecock's a wery good game, vhen you an't the shuttlecock and two lawyers the battledores, in which case it gets too exciting to be pleasant.

  Charles Dickens

  Games, Two, Lawyer

  Pickwick Papers ch. 20 (1837)

• Lawyers hold that there are two kinds of particularly bad witnesses--a reluctant witness, and a too-willing witness.

  Charles Dickens

  Two, Lawyer, Kind

  Charles Dickens (1842). “The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club: In 2 Vol”, p.82

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