Clarence Darrow Quotes

for civilization to survive, the human race has to remain civilized.

The long-established and noble rule of Law, one of the greatest products of the character and tradition of British history, has suffered a deadly blow. Blackmail has become respectable.

Moral values, and a culture and a religion, maintaining these values are far better than laws and regulations.

Trial by television is ... foreign to our system.

The permissive society has been allowed to become a dirty phrase. A better phrase is the civilized society.

Truth and trust are the means by which civilization holds off barbarism.

If "Thou shalt not covet," and "Thou shalt not steal," were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.

They knew no better, but I do not propose to follow the example of a barbarian because he was honestly a barbarian.

It is impossible to maintain freedom and order and justice without religious and moral sanctions.

Our ideals, like the gods of old, are constantly demanding human sacrifices.

Manners are the root, laws only the trunk and branches. Manners are the archetypes of laws. Manners are laws in their infancy; laws are manners fully grown,--or, manners are children, which, when they grow up, become laws.

Man perfected by society is the best of all animals; he is the most terrible of all when he lives without law and without justice. If he finds himself an individual who cannot live in society, or who pretends he has need of only his own resources do not consider him as a member of humanity; he is a savage beast or a god.

What is morality but immemorial custom? Conscience is the chief of conservatives.

Social mores change with time, like fashion - who knows where it might all end up? I especially like the idea that waste, impoliteness and overpopulation become "abominations," although I'm not sure recycling one's aunt will ever truly catch on.

GENTLE READER: You, sir, are an anarchist, and Miss Manners is frightened to have anything to do with you. It is true that questioning the table manners of others is rude. But to overthrow the accepted conventions of society, on the flimsy grounds that you have found them silly, inefficient and discomforting, is a dangerous step toward destroying civilization.

True religion is the foundation of society. When that is once shaken by contempt, the whole fabric cannot be stable nor lasting.

Barbarism? That's ironic coming from a woman helping to prepare us for slaughter. And what's she basing our success on? Our table manners?

A trial cannot be conducted by announcing the general culpability of a civilization. Only the actual deeds which, at least, stank in the nostrils of the entire world were brought to judgment.

Justice is as much a matter of fashion as charm is.

Justice and truth are the common ties of society

Justice is a moral virtue, merely because it has that tendency to the good of mankind, and indeed is nothing but an artificial invention to that purpose. The same may be said of allegiance, of the laws of nations, of modesty, and of good manners. All these are mere human contrivances for the interest of society.

In most old communities there is a common sense even in sensuality. Vice itself gets gradually digested into a system, is amenable to certain laws of conventional propriety and honor, has for its object simply the gratification of its appetites, and frowns with quite a conservative air on all new inventions, all untried experiments in iniquity.

Morals were restrictive, but they were grounded on human experience.

Courtroom : A place where Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot would be equals, with the betting odds favoring Judas.

I groaned. Man and his codes! Even in a lawless inferno, man has to give himself some honor, he's so desperate to separate himself from the beasts.