LAWYER QUOTES IV
quotations about lawyers
If you cannot avoid a quarrel with a blackguard, let your lawyer manage it, rather than yourself. No man sweeps his own chimney, but employs a chimney-sweeper, who has no objection to dirty work, because it is his trade.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
He who will always be his own lawyer will often have a fool for a client.
J. HUNTER
attributed, Day's Collacon
A lawyer is an odd sort of fish, first rotten, then green, then ripe.
ROBERT CHRISTY
Proverbs, Maxims and Phrases
The Post Office just recalled their newest stamps: They had a picture of lawyers on them ... and people couldn't figure out which side to spit on.
MARVIN LEBMAN
A Collection of Jokes and Funny Stories
Anyone who believes a better day dawns when lawyers are eliminated has the burden of explaining who will take their place. Who will protect the poor, the injured, the victims of negligence, the victims of racial discrimination, and the victims of racial violence?... Lawyers are the simple yet essential means by which people seek to vindicate their rights and we must not foreclose that means.
JOHN CURTIN
remarks at American Bar Association annual meeting, Aug. 13, 1991
A lawyers performance in the courtroom is responsible for about 25 percent of the outcome; the remaining 75 percent depends on the facts.
MELVIN BELLI
attributed, Jar of Quotes
There were lawyers who promoted quarrels to get fees. But they were the pariahs of the profession. The best lawyers were peacemakers, and though, of necessity, professional partisans when engaged in litigation, they were generally honorable partisans.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Reminiscences
Lawyers are the jackals of commerce.
ELBERT HUBBARD
Fra Magazine, Sep. 1911
Lawyers are like painters--once they get into a house, you never know when you will get rid of them again.
PETER ANDERSON GRAHAM
The Red Scaur
Lawyers are in the business of advocacy, not judgment.
ALLAN C. HUTCHINSON
Is Killing People Right?
It is an ill cause that the lawyer thinks shame o'.
JOHN RAY
A Complete Collection of English Proverbs
How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb? How many can you afford?
BLANCHE KNOTT
Blanch Knott's Treasury of Tastelessness
As to the essentials of a good lawyer, I have some very definite convictions. He should have a keen sense of right and wrong and a firm belief in basic moral values. I would hate to trust the welfare or protection of the life or property of any of my clients to a lawyer who had no respect for moral values, or one who had a callous indifference as to what was basically right and wrong.
JOSEPH T. KARCHER
New Jersey Lawyer, Nov. 1986
There must be some honest lawyers at the New York bar, and some impartial judges on the New York bench, but I should not like to be set to find them.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
Lawyers enjoy a little mystery, you know. Why, if everybody came forward and told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth straight out, we should all retire to the workhouse.
DOROTHY L. SAYERS
Clouds of Witness
Lawyers are like that famous vampire-bat, said to exist in Hungary, which seizes on a creature, and never lets go while there is blood left.
WALTER BESANT
Dorothy Forster
We lawyers learn to study the faces of our witnesses, to form quick judgments, and to act upon them.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
I realized the true function of a lawyer was to unite parties riven asunder. The lesson was so indelibly burnt into me that a large part of my time during the twenty years of my practice as a lawyer was occupied in bringing about private compromises of hundreds of cases. I lost nothing thereby -- not even money, certainly not my soul.
MAHATMA GANDHI
An Autobiography
Some lawyers are like unto the camel, which, before drinking out of a brook, maketh the water turbid with his foot.
ADOLPHUS WILLIAM WARD
"Abraham a Sancta Clara", Collected Papers
Lawyers are fleas on the hide of human nature.
STEPHEN KING
"1922", Full Dark, No Stars