Great Throughts Treasury
This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Clarence Darrow, fully Clarence Seward Darrow
American Lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks and defending John T. Scopes in the Scopes Trial, in which he opposed William Jennings Bryan
"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."
"History repeats itself, and that's one of the things that's wrong with history."
"As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever."
"In a terrible crisis there is only one element more helpless than the poor, and that is the rich."
"Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt."
"Laws should be like clothes. They should be made to fit the people they are meant to serve."
"The pursuit of truth shall set you free - even if you never catch up with it."
"There is no such thing as justice - in or out of court."
"To think is to differ."
"When we abandon the thought of immortality we at least have cast out fear. We gain a certain dignity and self-respect. We regard our fellow travelers as companions in the pleasures and tribulations of life... We gain kinship with the world."
"With all their faults, trade-unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in man, than any other association of men."
"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."
"Common experience shows how much rarer is moral courage than physical bravery. A thousand men will march to the mouth of a cannon where one man will dare espouse an unpopular cause. "
"Progress has never been a bargain; you've got to pay for it. You can have a telephone, but you'll have to give up privacy and the charm of distance. You may conquer the air, but the birds will lose their wonder, and the clouds will smell of gasoline. "
"The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children."
"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."