Lawyer Quotes

• You are remembered for the rules you break.

  Douglas MacArthur

  Military, Bad Ass, Legacy

  229 Copy quote

• Everyone wants to be paid well - I know that I certainly do. But there are lots of other satisfactions that we get from our work. To feel needed. To feel accomplishment. To believe that our work matters. Being a lawyer gives you a rare chance to experience that kind of success.

  Jeffrey Toobin

  Believe, Giving, Accomplishment

  "On Becoming a Lawyer" by Jeffrey Toobin, www.newyorker.com. June 20, 2013.

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• Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?

  Abraham Lincoln

  Friendship, Forgiveness, Peace

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• I do not deal with subtleties; I am only a lawyer.

  F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead

  Deals, Subtlety

  4 Copy quote

• Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Inspirational, Motivational, Leadership

  152 Copy quote

• A good lawyer is a bad Christian.

  John Lothrop Motley

  Christian, Good Christian, Good Lawyer

  John Lothrop Motley (2011). “The Rise of the Dutch Republic: A History”, p.207, Cambridge University Press

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• Why has the Democratic Party become so arrogantly detached from ordinary Americans? Though they claim to speak for the poor and dispossessed, Democrats have increasingly become the party of an upper-middle-class professional elite, top-heavy with journalists, academics and lawyers.

  Camille Paglia

  Party, Class, Ordinary

  35 Copy quote

• It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Law, Politics, Ruins

  Theodore Roosevelt (1904). “The Roosevelt Doctrine: Beng the Personal Utterances of the President on Various Matters of Vital Interest, Authoritatively Arranged for Reference in Their Logical Sequence; a Brief Summary of the Principles of American Citizenship and Government”

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• You know that big government doesn't hurt big corporations. They've got the best lawyers and accountants in the world. You know who gets destroyed by big government? It's the little guys.

  Marco Rubio

  Hurt, Government, Guy

  4 Copy quote

• A lawyer's time and advice are his(her) stock in trade.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Advice, Trade, Best Lawyer

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• To succeed as a lawyer, a man must work like a horse and live like a hermit.

  John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon

  Horse, Men, Succeed

  7 Copy quote

• I'm very pleased with each advancing year. It stems back to when I was forty. I was a bit upset about reaching that milestone, but an older friend consoled me. "Don't complain about growing old - many, many people do not have that privilege."

  Earl Warren

  Years, People, Upset

  The Reader's Digest, Vol. 116, (p. 43), 1980.

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• True, we [lawyers] 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

  Mistake, Stress, Eye

  23 Copy quote

• The public regards lawyers with great distrust. They think lawyers are smarter than the average guy but use their intelligence deviously. Well, they're wrong. Usually they are not smarter.

  F. Lee Bailey

  Thinking, Average, Guy

  Los Angeles Times, January 09, 1972.

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• 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

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• Compromise is the best and cheapest lawyer.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Compromise

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• And God said 'Let there be Satan, so people don't blame everything on me. And let there be lawyers, so people don't blame everything on Satan.'

  George Burns

  People, Blame, Satan

  90 Copy quote

• The power of the lawyer is in the uncertainty of the law.

  Jeremy Bentham

  Law, Attorney, Uncertainty

  Jeremy Bentham, John Bowring (1842). “The Works of Jeremy Bentham, Now First Collected”, p.429

  77 Copy quote

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• Do not demand love. Begin to love. You will be loved.

  C. Rajagopalachari

  Love, Relationship, Loving Someone

  "Rajaji: A Life" by Rajmohan Gandhi, Penguin Books India, 1997.

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• Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Business, Opportunity, Men

  "Notes for a Law Lecture," ca. 1 July 1850

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• In the old days all you needed was a handshake. Nowadays you need forty lawyers.

  Jimmy Hoffa

  Power, Needs, Management

  102 Copy quote

• The doctor sees all the weakness of mankind; the lawyer all the wickedness, the theologian all the stupidity.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Stupid, Silly, Doctors

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2007). “Parerga and Paralipomena: A Collection of Philosophical Essays”, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for to-morrow which can be done to-day.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Happiness, Procrastination, Men

  Abraham Lincoln, Mario Matthew Cuomo, G. S. Boritt (2004). “Lincoln on Democracy”, p.45, Fordham Univ Press

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• Teach the children so it will not be necessary to teach the adults.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Inspirational, Teacher, Children

  65 Copy quote

• There are three sorts of lawyers - able, unable and lamentable.

  Robert Smith Surtees

  Funny, Three, Able

  Robert Smith Surtees (1860). “"Plain Or Ringlets?"”, p.141

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