Philosophical Inspiration for Those Who Dare

"The courts hold a unique position among our democratic institutions. In a sense, they represent one of our last bastions of participatory democracy, in which disputants go directly before a judge or jury to resolve an issue. In no other governmental context does an individual have the opportunity to take a problem to a decision-maker who represents the full force and power of that particular branch of government. This direct interchange between the individual and the state is at the heart of the democratic process ... We must protect this unique heritage and strive to preserve the values it represents."

-- Rose E. Bird, Chief Justice, Supreme Court of California, 

Los Angeles Times (16 Nov 1977)

"People of mediocre ability sometimes achieve outstanding success because they don't know when to quit. Most men succeed because they are determined to."

-- George Allen, Football Coach

"About half the practice of a decent lawyer consists in telling would-be clients that they are damned fools and should stop."

-- Elihu Root, 1845-1937, Martin Mayer, The Lawyers, 1967

"The person who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore."

-- Dale Carnegie

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the sage harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

-- Mark Twain

"Everyone has his own Atlantics to fly. Whatever you want very much to do, against the opposition of tradition, neighborhood opinion, and so-called 'common' sense - that is an Atlantic."

-- Amelia Earhart, National Geographic, January 1998.

"As a general rule the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information."

-- Benjamin Disraeli

"I'm sick and tired of hearing about the number of cases disposed of when we discuss the judicial system. The chief justice should know that the job of the courts is not to dispose of cases but to decide them justly. Doesn't he know that the business of courts is justice?"

-- Jim R. Carrigan, Justice, Supreme Court of Colorado

                       Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, August 3, 1977.

"He wastes his tears who weeps before the judge."

-- Italian Proverb

"You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try."

-- Dale Carnegie

"May you have a lawsuit in which you know you are right."

-- Spanish gypsy curse

"The late George Haight, a giant of the Chicago bar, was once asked 'What makes a good lawyer?' His short reply deserves to be remembered: 'Lots of scar tissue.'"

-- Milton B. Pollock, "Some Practical Aspects of

               Appellate Advocacy," New York State Bar Bulletin,

               February 1959.

"Once a lawyer was arguing a case before three lord justices in the court of appeal, dealing with an elementary point of law at inordinate length. Finally, the master of the rolls, who was presiding, intervened: 'Really,' he protested, 'do give this court credit for some intelligence.' Quick as a flash came the reply: 'That is the mistake I made in the court below, my lord.' "

-- Anonymous, reported in A Lifetime with the Law, 1961,

               by Archibald Edgar Bowker.

"Just keep going. Everybody gets better if they keep at it."

-- Ted Williams, Hall of Fame Baseball Player

"The public regards lawyers with great distrust. They think lawyers are smarter than the average guy but use their intelligence deviously. Well, they're wrong; usually, they are not smarter."

-- F. Lee Bailey, Los Angeles Times, January 9, 1972

"The fact that a lawyer advised such foolish conduct, does not relieve it of foolishness ... "

-- Lucilius A. Emery, American jurist, Hanscom v. Marson,

               82 Me. 288, 298 (1890).

"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all."

-- Dale Carnegie

"The court should be a place where anybody can come - whatever they have in their pocket - and be able to file a complaint in simple fashion and at least have somebody give consideration to it and give them an opportunity to be heard."

-- Thomas T. Curtin, Judge, U.S. District Court, 

               New York Times (7 Oct 1971)

"Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.

-- William Feather

"My fees are sufficient punishment for anyone."

-- F. Lee Bailey, LA Times, January 9, 1972

"Ninety percent of our lawyers serve 10% of our people."

-- Jimmy Carter, in Modern Legal Glossary, 1983

"My prayer to God is a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies very ridiculous!' "

-- Voltaire, Letter to M. Damilaville, May 1767

"The average lawyer is essentially a mechanic who works with a pen instead of a ball-peen hammer. Machinists' unions require an apprenticeship, not an advanced degree."

-- Bob Schmitt, American jurist, Americans for Legal

                       Reform, Vol. 4, No. 3, Spring 1984

"... in spite of all the bar examinations and better law schools, we are more casual about qualifying the people we allow to act as advocates in the courtroom than we are about licensing electricians. The painful fact is that the courtrooms of America all too often have Piper-Cub advocates trying to handle the controls of Boeing 747 litigation."

-- Warren E. Burger, Lecture, Fordham University

               Law School, LA Times, December 28, 1973

"When you have no basis for argument, abuse the plaintiff."

-- Cicero, Roman poet, 106-43 B.C.

"The [legal fees] are outrageous. With the cost of litigation these days, I think clients would often be better off if they just met in the halls and threw dice. Certainly it would be cheaper."

-- Walter McLaughlin, Chief Justice, 

               Supreme Court of Massachusetts, Time, July 27, 1981

"I find the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."

-- Thomas Jefferson

"It seems as if the Department [of Justice] sees the value of the Bill of Rights as no more than obstacles to be overcome."

-- Sanford H. Kadish, Professor, 

               University of California at Berkeley, 

                        LA Times, July 25, 1969.

"No one knows what they can do till they try."

-- Publilius Syrus

"Ignorance of the law does not prevent the losing lawyer from collecting his bill."

-- Anonymous, Laurrence J. Peter, Peter's Quotations, 1977

"Better suffer a great evil than do a little one."

-- Proverb, Handbook of Proverbs, 1855

"When innocence is frightened, the judge is condemned."

-- Publilius Syrus, Latin writer, Sententiae, c. 43 B.C.

"The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones."

-- Chinese Proverb

"When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free."

-- Charles Evans Hughes 

                Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, June 17, 1925

"There is nothing more horrible than the murder of a beautiful theory by a brutal gang of facts."

-- La Rochefoucauld, 1747-1827

"A judge knows nothing unless it has been explained to him three times."

-- Proverb, Rosalind Fergusson, 

               The Facts on File Dictionary of Proverbs, 1983.

"There is no surer way to misread any document than to read it literally."

-- Learned Hand, Guiseppi v. Walling, 324 U.S. 244,

               65 S.Ct. 605, 89 L.Ed. 921 (1944)

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."

-- Aldous Huxley, A Note on Dogma, 1894-1963

"No one is ever innocent when his opponent is the judge."

-- Lucan, Roman poet, 39-65, Pharsalia

"Now, then, all ye black guards that isn't lawyers, out ye go!"

-- Crier at Ballinloe when ordered to clear the court

               by the judge

"... all life is an experiment. Every year if not every day we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge."

-- Oliver Wendell Holmes