Top 160 Clarence Darrow Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “I am an agnostic; I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of.”

— Clarence Darrow

52. “The man who fights for his fellow-man is a better man than the one who fights for himself.”

— Clarence Darrow

53. “An idea is a greater monument than a cathedral.”

— Clarence Darrow

54. “The law is a horrible business.”

— Clarence Darrow

55. “It’s not bad people I fear so much as good people. When a person is sure that he is good, he is nearly hopeless; he gets cruel- he believes in punishment.”

— Clarence Darrow

56. “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.”

— Clarence Darrow

57. “Do you think you can cure the hatreds and the maladjustments of the world by hanging them? You simply show your ignorance and your hate when you say it. You may here and there cure hatred with love and understanding, but you can only add fuel to the flames by cruelty and hate.”

— Clarence Darrow

58. “The best way to understand somebody else is to put yourself in his place.”

— Clarence Darrow

59. “No iconoclast can possibly escape the severest criticism.”

— Clarence Darrow

60. “Human action is governed largely by instinct and emotion.”

— Clarence Darrow

61. “Some false representations contravene the law; some do not. The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business, and, besides, could not be done. The line between honesty and dishonesty is a narrow, shifting one and usually lets those get by that are the most subtle and already have more than they can use.”

— Clarence Darrow

62. “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 men, than any other association of men.”

— Clarence Darrow

63. “Physical deformity, calls forth our charity. But the infinite misfortune of moral deformity calls forth nothing but hatred and vengeance.”

— Clarence Darrow

64. “No nation can be really great that is held together by Gatling guns, and no true loyalty can be induced and kept through fear.”

— Clarence Darrow

65. “I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure – that is all that agnosticism means.”

— Clarence Darrow

66. “The first great cause of crime is poverty, and we will never cure crime until we get rid of poverty.”

— Clarence Darrow

67. “The love of nature comes with maturing years and is one of the few compensations for growing old.”

— Clarence Darrow

68. “The first half of our lives are ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.”

— Clarence Darrow

69. “Chloroform unfit children. Show them the same mercy that is shown beasts that are no longer fit to live.”

— Clarence Darrow

70. “I don’t like spinach, and I’m glad I don’t, because if I liked it I’d eat it, and I just hate it.”

— Clarence Darrow

71. “Can any rational person believe that the Bible is anything but a human document?”

— Clarence Darrow

72. “A criminal is a person with predatory instincts; but, without sufficient capital to form a corporation.”

— Clarence Darrow

73. “I am a friend of the working man, and I would rather be his friend, than be one.”

— Clarence Darrow

74. “Each child should be more intelligent than his parents.”

— Clarence Darrow

75. “I am always suspicious of righteous indignation. Nothing is more cruel than righteous indignation.”

— Clarence Darrow

76. “Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas. So does whiskey. I believe in the brain of man. I’m not worried about my soul.”

— Clarence Darrow

77. “The purpose of man is like the purpose of a pollywog – to wiggle along as far as he can without dying; or, to hang to life until death takes him.”

— Clarence Darrow

78. “Cheating, having ‘hoes,’ none of that is cute. To be honest, it’s really immature. I don’t see how people take pride in breaking someone’s heart. The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.”

— Clarence Darrow

79. “We know life is futile. A man who considers that his life is of very wonderful importance is awfully close to a padded cell.”

— Clarence Darrow

80. “I am not afraid of any god in the universe who would send me or any other man or woman to hell. If there were such a being, he would not be a god; he would be a devil.”

— Clarence Darrow

81. “I had a vivid imagination. Not only could I put myself in the other person’s place, but I could not avoid doing so. My sympathies always went out to the weak, the suffering, and the poor. Realizing their sorrows I tried to relieve them in order that I myself might be relieved.”

— Clarence Darrow

82. “If there is to be any permanent improvement in man and any better social order, it must come mainly from the education and humanizing of man.”

— Clarence Darrow

83. “Ancestors do not mean so much. The rebel who succeeds generally makes it easier for the posterity that follows him; so these descendants are usually contented and smug and soft. Rebels are made from life, not ancestors.”

— Clarence Darrow

84. “The ability and inclination to use physical strength is no indication of bravery or tenacity to life. The greatest cowards are often the greatest bullies. Nothing is cheaper and more common than physical bravery.”

— Clarence Darrow

85. “Everyone is the heir to all that has gone before; his structure and emotional life is fixed, and no two children of nature have the same heredity. I believe everyone should and must live out what is in him. So no two lives can be the same.”

— Clarence Darrow

86. “Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt.”

— Clarence Darrow

87. “The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are drifting side by side to our common doom.”

— Clarence Darrow

88. “There are a lot of myths which make the human race cruel and barbarous and unkind. Good and Evil, Sin and Crime, Free Will and the like delusions made to excuse God for damning men and to excuse men for crucifying each other.”

— Clarence Darrow

89. “The Constitution is a delusion and a snare if the weakest and humblest man in the land cannot be defended in his right to speak and his right to think as much as the strongest in the land.”

— Clarence Darrow

90. “In the great flood of human life that is spawned upon the earth, it is not often that a man is born.”

— Clarence Darrow

91. “Instead of yielding to idle conversation it might profit one to cultivate silence and contemplation.”

— Clarence Darrow

92. “A jury is more apt to be unbiased and independent than a court, but they very seldom stand up against strong public clamor. Judges naturally believe the defendant is guilty.”

— Clarence Darrow

93. “The objector and the rebel who raises his voice against what he believes to be the injustice of the present and the wrongs of the past is the one who hunches the world along.”

— Clarence Darrow

94. “Liberty is the most jealous and exacting mistress that can beguile the soul and brain of man.”

— Clarence Darrow

95. “Laws have come down to us from old customs and folk-ways based on primitive ideas of man’s origin, capacity and responsibility.”

— Clarence Darrow

96. “Everything serious that he says is a joke and everything humorous that he says is dead serious.”

— Clarence Darrow

97. “It may never come, but I fancy than no man who has sympathy for the human race does not wish that sometime those who labor should have the whole product of their toil. Probably it will never come, but I wish that the time might come when men who work in the industries would own the industries.”

— Clarence Darrow

98. “The truth is always modern and there never comes a time when it is safe to give it voice.”

— Clarence Darrow

99. “Whenever I hear people discussing birth control, I always remember that I was fifth.”

— Clarence Darrow

100. “Punishment as punishment is not admissible unless the offender has had the free will to select his course.”

— Clarence Darrow