Top 250 Bryan Stevenson Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “My parents lived in a poor rural community on the Eastern Shore, and schools were still segregated. And I remember when lawyers came into our community to open up the public schools to black kids.”

— Bryan Stevenson

152. “In a landscape littered with all of this imagery about the nobility of the Civil War and the Confederate effort and struggle, the absence of markers says something really powerful.”

— Bryan Stevenson

153. “One of the country’s least-discussed postwar problems is how frequently combat veterans bring the traumas of war back with them and are incarcerated after returning to their communities.”

— Bryan Stevenson

154. “I was uncertain about what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew it would have something to do with the lives of the poor, America’s history of racial inequality, and the struggle to be equitable and fair with one another. It would have something to do with the things I’d already seen in life so far and wondered about, but I couldn’t really put it together in a way that made a career path clear.”

— Bryan Stevenson

155. “The bad things that happen to us don’t define us. It’s just important sometimes that people understand where we’re coming from.”

— Bryan Stevenson

156. “Between 1990 and 2005, a new prison opened in the United States every ten days.”

— Bryan Stevenson

157. “Finally I got to the point where I said, I’d like to start a project where we can actually talk about race and poverty, not through the lens of a particular case, but much more broadly.”

— Bryan Stevenson

158. “My parents, who grew up in terror and dealt with segregation and humiliation, nonetheless taught us to be hopeful and open and loving and not hateful toward anyone.”

— Bryan Stevenson

159. “You’ve got to beat the drum for justice.”

— Bryan Stevenson

160. “Oh, I think we can always do better,” I told him. “The bad things that happen to us don’t define us. It’s just important sometimes that people understand where we’re coming from.” We were both speaking softly to one another. Another officer walked by and stared at us. I went on: “You know, I really appreciate you saying to me what you just said. It means a lot, I really mean that. Sometimes I forget how we all need mitigation at some point.”

— Bryan Stevenson

161. “Walter told me that it was working from morning until night, being outdoors, that made him feel normal again. Then one afternoon, tragedy struck. He was cutting a tree when a branch dislodged and struck him, breaking his neck. It was a serious injury that left Walter in very poor condition for several weeks. He didn’t have a lot of care available, so he came to live with me in Montgomery for several months until he recovered.”

— Bryan Stevenson

162. “I thought of the victims of violent crime and the survivors or murdered loved ones, and how we’ve pressured them to recycle their pain and anguish and give it back to the offenders we prosecute. I thought of the many ways we’ve legalized vengeful and cruel punishments, how we’ve allowed our victimization to justify the victimization of others.”

— Bryan Stevenson

163. “Whenever things got really bad, and they were questioning the value of their lives, I would remind them that each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done. I told them that if someone tells a lie, that person is not just a liar. If you take something that doesn’t belong to you, you are not just a thief. Even if you kill someone, you’re not just a killer. I told myself that evening what I had been telling my clients for years. I am more than broken.”

— Bryan Stevenson

164. “Walter had taught me that mercy is just when it is rooted in hopefulness and freely given. Mercy is most empowering, liberating, and transformative when it is directed at the undeserving. The people who haven’t earned it, who haven’t even sought it, are the most meaningful recipients of our compassion. Walter genuinely forgave the people who unfairly accused him, the people who convicted him, and the people who had judged him unworthy of mercy.”

— Bryan Stevenson

165. “Finally, I’ve come to believe that the true measure of our commitment to justice, the character of our society, our commitment to the rule of law, fairness, and equality cannot be measured by how we treat the rich, the powerful, the privileged, and the respected among us.”

— Bryan Stevenson

166. “Walter made me understand why we have to reform a system of criminal justice that continues to treat people better if they are rich and guilty than if they are poor and innocent. A system that denies the poor the legal help they need, that makes wealth and status more important than culpability, must be changed... Fear and anger are a threat to justice; they can infect a community, a state, or a nation and make us blind, irrational, and dangerous.”

— Bryan Stevenson

167. “I believe it’s necessary to recognize that we all need mercy, we all need justice, and – perhaps – we all need some measure of unmerited grace.”

— Bryan Stevenson

168. “I am more than broken. In fact, there is a strength, a power even, in understanding brokenness, because embracing our brokenness creates a need and desire for mercy, and perhaps a corresponding need to show mercy.”

— Bryan Stevenson

169. “We’ve sent a quarter million kids, some under the age of twelve, to adult jails and prisons. For years, we’ve been the only country in the world that condemns children to life imprisonment without parole.”

— Bryan Stevenson

170. “Do you have children?” He looked up at me expectantly. “No, I don’t have children. I have nieces and nephews, though.” “What is your favorite color?” He once again smiled eagerly. I chuckled, since I don’t have a favorite color. But I wanted to respond to him. “Brown.” “Okay, my last question is the most important.” He looked up at me briefly with big eyes and smiled. He then became serious and read his question. “Who is your favorite cartoon character?” He was beaming when he looked at me.”

— Bryan Stevenson

171. “By the late 1980s and early 1990s, the politics of fear and anger sweeping the country and fueling mass incarceration was turning its attention to children.”

— Bryan Stevenson

172. “Sometimes I forget how we all need mitigation at some point.”

— Bryan Stevenson

173. “Ms. Parks leaned back, smiling. “Oooh honey, all that’s going to make you tired, tired, tired.” We all laughed, I looked down, a little embarrassed. Then Ms. Carr leaned forward and put her finger in my face and talked to me just like my grandmother used to talk to me. She said, “That’s why you’ve got to be brave, brave, brave.”

— Bryan Stevenson

174. “I continue to meet stone catchers along the way who inspire me and make me believe that we can do better than we’ve done for the accused, convicted, and condemned among us – as well as those who are victimized by crime and violence – and that all of us can do better for one another. The work continues.”

— Bryan Stevenson

175. “We’re supposed to sentence people fairly after fully considering their life circumstances, but instead we exploit the inability of the poor to get the legal assistance they need – all so we can kill them with less resistance.”

— Bryan Stevenson

176. “I frequently had difficult conversations with clients who were struggling and despairing over their situations – over the things they’d done, or had been done to them, that had led them to painful moments. Whenever things got really bad, and they were questioning the value of their lives, I would remind them that each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”

— Bryan Stevenson

177. “While these reforms were desperately needed, deinstitutionalization intersected with the spread of mass imprisonment policies – expanding criminal statutes and harsh sentencing – to disastrous effect.”

— Bryan Stevenson

178. “I thought of the people who would cheer his death and see it as some kind of victory. I realized they were broken people, too, even if they would never admit it. So many of us have become afraid and angry.”

— Bryan Stevenson

179. “I do what I do because I’m broken, too.”

— Bryan Stevenson

180. “It’s been so strange, Bryan. More people have asked me what they can do to help me in the last fourteen hours of my life than ever asked me in the years when I was coming up.” He looked at me, and his face twisted in confusion.”

— Bryan Stevenson

181. “But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion. We have a choice. We can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing. Or we can deny our brokenness, forswear compassion, and, as a result, deny our own humanity.”

— Bryan Stevenson

182. “Such a judgement cannot rationally be passed on children below a certain age because they are unfinished products, human works in progress.”

— Bryan Stevenson

183. “Constantly being suspected, accused, watched, doubted, distrusted, presumed guilty, and even feared is a burden borne by people of color that can’t be understood or confronted without a deeper conversation about our history of racial injustice.”

— Bryan Stevenson

184. “His struggle to form words and his determination to express gratitude reinforced his humanity for me, and it made thinking about his impending execution unbearable. Why couldn’t they see it, too?”

— Bryan Stevenson

185. “The privatization of prison health care, prison commerce, and a range of services has made mass incarceration a money-making windfall for a few and a costly nightmare for the rest of us.”

— Bryan Stevenson

186. “They were legally condemned children hidden away in adult prisons, largely unknown and forgotten, preoccupied with surviving in dangerous, terrifying environments with little family support or outside help. They weren’t exceptional. There were thousands of children like them scattered throughout prisons in the United States – children who had been sentenced to life imprisonment without parole or other extreme sentences.”

— Bryan Stevenson

187. “It wasn’t until 1967 that the United States Supreme Court finally struck down anti-miscegenation statutes.”

— Bryan Stevenson

188. “The Supreme Court had banned the execution of people with intellectual disability, but states like Alabama refused to assess in any honest way whether the condemned are disabled. We’re supposed to sentence people fairly after fully considering their life circumstances, but instead we exploit the inability of the poor to get the legal assistance they need – all so we can kill them with less resistance.”

— Bryan Stevenson

189. “We are all implicated when we allow other people to be mistreated.”

— Bryan Stevenson

190. “The expansion of victims’ rights ultimately made formal what had always been true: Some victims are more protected and valued than others.”

— Bryan Stevenson

191. “An older African American man once said to me, “You make them stop saying that! We grew up with terrorism all the time. The police, the Klan, anybody who was white could terrorize you. We had to worry about bombings and lynchings, racial violence of all kinds.”

— Bryan Stevenson

192. “I was trying so hard to get the project off the ground that my work had quickly become my life. I found something refreshing in the moments I spent with clients when we didn’t relate to one another as attorney and client but as friends.”

— Bryan Stevenson

193. “Not that pie in the sky stuff, not a preference for optimism over pessimism, but rather “an orientation of the spirit.” The kind of hope that creates a willingness to position oneself in a hopeless place and be a witness, that allows one to believe in a better future, even in the face of abusive power. That kind of hope makes one strong.”

— Bryan Stevenson

194. “I got that scar in Greene County, Alabama, trying to register to vote in 1964.”

— Bryan Stevenson

195. “Herbert sighed and looked away. “It’s been so strange, Bryan. More people have asked me what they can do to help me in the last fourteen hours of my life than ever asked me in the years when I was coming up.”

— Bryan Stevenson

196. “I told the Court that the United States is the only country in the world that imposes life imprisonment without parole sentences on children.”

— Bryan Stevenson

197. “I decided to talk to youth groups, churches, and community organizations about the challenges posed by the presumption of guilt assigned to the poor and people of color. I spoke at local meetings and tried to sensitize people to the need to insist on accountability from law enforcement.”

— Bryan Stevenson

198. “Ian spent eighteen years in uninterrupted solitary confinement.”

— Bryan Stevenson

199. “I didn’t deserve reconciliation or love in that moment, but that’s how mercy works. The power of just mercy is that it belongs to the undeserving.”

— Bryan Stevenson

200. “The people who haven’t earned it, who haven’t even sought it, are the most meaningful recipients of our compassion.”

— Bryan Stevenson