Attorney Wisdom Quotes

Were these boys in their right minds? Here were two boys with good intellect, one eighteen and one nineteen. They had all the prospects that life could hold out for any of the young; one a graduate of Chicago and another of Ann Arbor; one who had passed his examination for the Harvard Law School and was about to take a trip in Europe,--another who had passed at Ann Arbor, the youngest in his class, with three thousand dollars in the bank. Boys who never knew what it was to want a dollar; boys who could reach any position that was to boys of that kind to reach; boys of distinguished and honorable families, families of wealth and position, with all the world before them. And they gave it all up for nothing, for nothing! They took a little companion of one of them, on a crowded street, and killed him, for nothing, and sacrificed everything that could be of value in human life upon the crazy scheme of a couple of immature lads. Now, your Honor, you have been a boy; I have been a boy. And we have known other boys. The best way to understand somebody else is to put yourself in his place. Is it within the realm of your imagination that a boy who was right, with all the prospects of life before him, who could choose what he wanted, without the slightest reason in the world would lure a young companion to his death, and take his place in the shadow of the gallows? ...No one who has the process of reasoning could doubt that a boy who would do that is not right. How insane they are I care not, whether medically or legally. They did not reason; they could not reason; they committed the most foolish, most unprovoked, most purposeless, most causeless act that any two boys ever committed, and they put themselves where the rope is dangling above their heads.... Why did they kill little Bobby Franks? Not for money, not for spite; not for hate. They killed him as they might kill a spider or a fly, for the experience. They killed him because they were made that way. Because somewhere in the infinite processes that go to the making up of the boy or the man something slipped, and those unfortunate lads sit here hated, despised, outcasts, with the community shouting for their blood. . . . I know, Your Honor, that every atom of life in all this universe is bound up together. I know that a pebble cannot be thrown into the ocean without disturbing every drop of water in the sea. I know that every life is inextricably mixed and woven with every other life. I know that every influence, conscious and unconscious, acts and reacts on every living organism, and that no one can fix the blame. I know that all life is a series of infinite chances, which sometimes result one way and sometimes another. I have not the infinite wisdom that can fathom it, neither has any other human brain

The best prayer is repentance. The best sermon is character. The best mirror is reality. The best shield is faith. The best hammer is will. The best ammunition is truth. The best fortress is reason. The best school is life. The best attorney is justice. The best counselor is experience. The best warrior is courage. The best teacher is patience. The best student is humility. The best prophet is tomorrow. The best general is strategy. The best priest is piety. The best physician is nature. The best herb is peace. The best medicine is forgiveness. The best wealth is happiness. The best angel is mercy. The best companion is prudence. The best light is wisdom. The best religion is love.

Whom she will be my next wife, will marry my attorney on paper and marry me on the bed.

In 1881, being on a visit to Boston, my wife and I found ourselves in the Parker House with the Ingersoll's, and went over to Charleston to hear him lecture. His subject was 'Some Mistakes of Moses,' and it was a memorable experience. Our lost leaders, -- Emerson, Thoreau, Theodore Parker, -- who had really spoken to disciples rather than to the nation, seemed to have contributed something to form this organ by which their voice could reach the people. Every variety of power was in this orator, -- logic and poetry, humor and imagination, simplicity and dramatic art, moral and boundless sympathy. The wonderful power which Washington's Attorney-general, Edmund Randolph, ascribed to Thomas Paine of insinuating his ideas equally into learned and unlearned had passed from Paine's pen to Ingersoll's tongue. The effect on the people was indescribable. The large theatre was crowded from pit to dome. The people were carried from plaudits of his argument to loud laughter at his humorous sentences, and his flexible voice carried the sympathies of the assembly with it, at times moving them to tears by his pathos. {Conway's thoughts on the great Robert Ingersoll}

Although police can still exercise discretion on the beat, the problems of the criminal justice system are real. Many officers—and prosecutors— consider specific laws self-defeating. When police officers arrest a person who throws his narcotics to the ground, the officers may momentarily lose sight of the package. But if they testify in court that they did so, the case is likely to be dismissed. Some officers perjure themselves rather than lose the case. If an officer admits that he lost sight of the drugs, some police, attorneys, and judges infer that his testimony has been bought by the dealers. Lawmakers sometimes present police with unenforceable laws or fail to provide the funds necessary for enforcement. Courts issue rulings that impose unreasonable standards of proof, undermining public respect for law. Greater wisdom in legislators and judges will be required to square the balance between order and liberty, together with more communication to the public by police organizations, as in the growing opposition to easy purchase of cheap handguns.

The old man held out a paper scroll, not mere parchment. It was a clear sign of wealth and status. Not every noble family could afford to use paper for invitations. The very fact that Hadjar was being visited by the clan’s attorney, and not by a simple servant, spoke volumes. “Thank-” Hadjar reached out, almost closing his fingers around the scroll, but the old man suddenly loosened his grip. Caught in the wind, the invitation, decorated with monograms and tied with a scarlet ribbon, fell to the dirt at Hadjar’s feet. The old man didn’t apologize. He stood there, with his hand still outstretched, a sneer on his lips, radiating complete confidence in his superiority. A clear example that old age didn’t mean one also gained intelligence or wisdom. He’d lived long enough for his hair to turn gray, but not long enough to acquire a brain. He didn’t even realize how simply and blatantly he was being used. Hadjar, just as the old man had expected, bent down to pick up the invitation, dusted it off, and held it without putting it away in his spatial artifact, as was required by etiquette. “You didn’t have to bow to me, young man,” the old man grunted. This was quite a serious insult. Being the personal disciple of a great hero made Hadjar equal in status to the senior heirs of aristocratic families. He was at the very top of the social structure of Dahanatan. But Hadjar didn’t really care about any of that. The power he possessed was insignificant in his opinion, and ever since he’d eaten those first scraps in Primus’ dungeon, he’d stopped caring about whether he was a Prince or a circus freak. Titles didn’t matter. The important thing was that the old man was a servant, and Hadjar was almost an aristocrat. The lawyer’s words were akin to the old man throwing a glove in Hadjar’s face. Hadjar looked behind his visitor, at the dark carriage emblazoned with the white coat of arms of the Predatory Blades clan. Brustor would have to try a little harder. So far, his provocations weren’t even a match for the insults that Hadjar had received during his meetings with Emperor Morgan. Shocking the old man, Hadjar bowed deeply. “Only a silly young man,” he said, straightening back up, “doesn’t feel respect toward someone whose hair is whiter than his.

Wisdom from Thurgood Marshall as a young attorney: "Doctors can bury their mistakes. Lawyers cannot.