Great Throughts Treasury

"Truth has many shells. Each is the truth, but each represents a different aspect, depending on the bias, self-interest, or other psychological coloration which remains on the surface. As one after another shell is removed, the picture of truth changes. Only if one can reach the core, hidden beneath the protective covering, does one feel he knows the bare truth."

"Where there is no difference, there is only indifference."

"Many people with different backgrounds, cultures, languages, and creeds combine to make a nation. But that nation is greater than the sum total of the individual skills and talents of its people. Something more grows out of their unity than can be calculated by adding the assets of individual contributions. That intangible additional quantity is often due to the differences which make the texture of the nation rich. Therefore, we must never wipe out or deride the differences amongst us-for where there is no difference, there is only indifference."

"When a man points a finger at someone else, he should remember that four of his fingers are pointing at himself."

"Some people will believe anything if you whisper it to them. "

"A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist."

"We are slow to believe that which if believed would hurt our feelings."

"True religion is the life we lead, not the creed we profess."

"Preparation is the be-all of good trial work. Everything else-felicity of expression, improvisational brilliance-is a satellite around the sun. Thorough preparation is that sun."

"Books are standing counselors and preachers, always at hand, and always disinterested; having this advantage over oral instructors, that they are ready to repeat their lesson as often as we please."

"A beautiful lady is an accident of nature. A beautiful old lady is a work of art."

"Character is a letter of credit written on the face."

"Any speaker who does not strike oil in ten minutes should stop boring."

"A fine artist is one who makes familiar things new and new things familiar."

"A graceful taunt is worth a thousand insults."

"I find that action, even if not too well conceived, at least stimulates hope."

"In cross-examination, as in fishing, nothing is more ungainly than a fisherman pulled into the water by his catch."

"Once early in the morning, at two or three in the morning, when the master was asleep, the books in the library began to quarrel with each other as to which was the king of the library. The dictionary contended quite angrily that he was the master of the library because without words there would be no communication at all. The book of science argued stridently that he was the master of the library for without science there would have been no printing press or any of the other wonders of the world. The book of poetry claimed that he was the king, the master of the library, because he gave surcease and calm to his master when he was troubled. The books of philosophy, the economic books, all put in their claims, and the clamor was great and the noise at its height when a small low voice was heard from an old brown book lying in the center of the table and the voice said "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want". And all of the noise and the clamor in the library ceased, and there was a hush in the library, for all of the books knew who the real master of the library was."

"Oh, I get lucky a lot. I get lucky at four in the morning in the law library."

"I don't know how any man can believe in communism, when communism believes in no man."

"I know of no higher fortitude than stubbornness in the face of overwhelming odds."

"The best reply to an atheist is to give him a good dinner and ask him if he believes there is a cook."

"There is an aphorism about a farmer who before sunrise on a cold and misty morning saw a huge beast on a distant hill. He seized his rifle and walked cautiously toward the ogre to head off an attack on his family. When he got nearer, he was relieved to find that the beast was only a small bear. He approached more confidently and when he was within a few hundred yards the distorting haze had lifted sufficiently so that he could recognize the figure as only that of a man. Lowering his rifle, he walked toward the stranger and discovered he was his brother."

"The day of manipulating a jury is absolutely gone, if there ever was such a day. Cases are won through preparation, dragging the facts into the courtroom. The lawyer excavates the facts, and the more he digs, the more certain is he to win; and then he can pound upon the facts and the emotional appeal-that's the way of persuasion. But to play clever with a jury when you don't have the facts leaves them cold. They resent it."

"Still, I know of no higher fortitude than stubbornness in the face of overwhelming odds."

"To find a fault is easy; to do better may be difficult."

"Words of comfort, skillfully administered, are the oldest therapy known to man."

"Yes, there's such a thing as luck in trial law but it only comes at 3 o'clock in the morning. You'll still find me in the library looking for luck at 3 o'clock in the morning."