God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

________________

Voltaire
(1694-1778)

Do not pray for easy lives.
Pray to be stronger men.

________________

John F. Kennedy
(1917 - 1963)

With courage you will dare to take risks,
have the strength to be compassionate,
and the wisdom to be humble.

Courage is the foundation of integrity.

________________

Keshavan Nair

If you have integrity,
nothing else matters.

And if you don’t have integrity,
nothing else matters.

________________

Life

Relationships are all there is.
Everything in the universe only exists because it is
in relationship to everything else. Nothing exists in isolation.
We have to stop pretending we are individuals that can go it alone.

________________

Margaret Wheatley (from Never Eat Alone)

Morality cannot be legislated
but behavior can be regulated.
Judicial decrees may not change the heart,
but they can restrain the heartless.

________________

MLK, Jr.
Strength to Love (1963)

The ultimate measure of a man is not
where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience,
but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

________________

MLK, Jr.

Everything that we see
is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.

________________

MLK, Jr.
The Measure of a Man (1958)

I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered
something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.

________________

MLK, Jr.

When the government fears the people, you have liberty.
When the people fear the government you have Tyranny.

________________

Thomas Jefferson

I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living
will be one with no thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians
or any other distinctions.

This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream
-- a dream yet unfulfilled.

A dream of equality of opportunity,
of privilege and property widely distributed;

a dream of a land where men will not
take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few;

a dream of a land where men will not argue that
the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character;

a dream of a nation where all our gifts and resources are held not
for ourselves alone, but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity;

the dream of a country where every man will respect
the dignity and worth of the human personality.

________________

MLK, Jr.

Try not to become a man of success
but rather to become a man of value.

________________

Albert Einstein
(1879 - 1955)

We make a Living by what we get.
We make a Life by what we give.

________________

Unk

Let us never negotiate out of fear.
But let us never fear to negotiate.

________________

JFK

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it,
and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

________________

Samuel Johnson

Thou shalt not be a victim.
Thou shalt not be a perpetrator.
Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.

________________

Civilization can only revive when there shall come into being
in a number of individuals a new tone of mind, independent of
the prevalent one among the crowds, and in opposition to it --
a tone of mind which will gradually win influence over
the collective one, and in the end determine its character.

Only an ethical movement can rescue us from barbarism,
and the ethical comes into existence only in individuals.

________________

Albert Schweitzer

Then, without realizing it, you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day; of course, you achieve quite a lot in the course of time.
Anyone can do this, it costs nothing and is certainly very helpful.
Whoever doesn't know it must learn and find by experience that
a quiet conscience makes one strong.

________________

Anne Frank

It is not the critic who counts,
not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled,
or where the doer of deeds could have done better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood,
who strives valiantly,
who errs and comes short again and again,
who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions,
and spends himself in a worthy cause,
who at best knows achievement and
who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly
so that his place shall never be with those cold and
timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

________________

Theodore Roosevelt
From a speech given in Paris at the Sorbonne in 1910

Life is 10% what happens to you
and 90% how you react to it.

________________

Unk

Six essential qualities that are the key to success:
Sincerity, personal integrity, humility, courtesy, wisdom, charity.

________________

William Menninger

This is my simple religion.
There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy.

Our own brain, our own heart is our temple;
the philosophy is kindness.

________________

When I was a child,
I spake as a child,
I understood as a child,
I thought as a child:
but when I became a man,
I put away childish things.

________________

I Corinthians
(ch. XIII, v. 11)

Too often we...
enjoy the comfort of opinion
without the discomfort of thought.

________________

JFK

A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

________________

Oscar Wilde
(1854-1900)

Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
Expediency asks the question - is it politic?
Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
But conscience asks the question - is it right?

And there comes a time when one must take a position
that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular;
but one must take it because it is right.

________________

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The man who does not read good books
has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.

________________

Mark Twain
(1835-1910)

We cannot control the evil tongues of others;
but a good life enables us to disregard them.

________________

Cato the Elder
(234 BC - 149 BC)

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that
the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

________________

JFK

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

________________

MLK Jr.

Things may come to those who wait,
but only thing sleft by those who hustle.

________________

A. Lincoln

Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows,
the censure of their colleagues,
the wrath of their society.

Moral courage is a rarer commodity
than bravery in battle or great intelligence.

Yet it is the one essential,
vital quality for those who seek to change a world
which yields most painfully to change.

________________

Robert F. Kennedy,
1966 speech

We didn't lose the game; we just ran out of time.

________________

Vince Lombardi

The nice thing about being a celebrity is
that if you bore people they think it's their fault.

________________

Henry Kissinger

Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.

________________

Jimi Hendrix

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,
Scopes trial, 1925

If you are going through hell, keep going.

________________

Sir Winston Churchill
(1874-1965)

“Pastor Niemöller spoke for thousands and thousands of men like me
when he spoke (too modestly of himself) and said that,
when the Nazis attacked the Communists, he was a little uneasy,
but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothing;

and then they attacked the Socialists, and he was a little uneasier,
but, still, he was not a Socialist, and he did nothing;

and then the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on,
and he was always uneasier, but still he did nothing.

And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman,
and he did something--but then it was too late.”

________________

Martin Niemöller,
quoted in Milton Mayer's book,
They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45
(Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press,
1955, 1966)

Let all the laws be clear, uniform, and precise;
to interpret laws is almost always to corrupt them.

________________

Voltaire,
Philosophical Dictionary

Never, never, never, on cross-examination ask a witness
a question you don't already know the answer to,
was a tenet I absorbed with my baby-food.

Do it, and you'll often get an answer you don't want,
an answer that might wreck your case.

________________

Harper Lee,
To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)

Discourage litigation.

Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can.
Point out to them how the nominal winner is often the real loser
- in fees, expenses, and waste of time.

As a peacemaker the lawyer has a
superior opportunity of being a good person.

There will still be business enough.

________________

President Abraham Lincoln
(1809-1865)

No set of legal institutions or prescriptions exists apart
from the narratives that locate it and give it meaning.

________________

Robert Carver (1967 - ),
Chancellor Kent Professor
of Law and Legal Studies,
Yale University

Definitions are the foundation of reason.
You can't reason without them.

________________

Robert M. Pirsig,
Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance (1974)

Nobody has a more sacred obligation
to obey the law than those who make the law.

________________

Jean Anouilh,
Antigone (1939)

[A lawyer's] performance in the courtroom
is responsible for about 25 percent of the outcome;
the remaining 75 percent depends upon the facts.

________________

Melvin Belli,
US News & World Report
(September 20, 1982)

Man looks in the abyss,
there's nothing staring back at him.

At that moment, man finds his character.
And that is what keeps him out of the abyss.

________________

“Wallstreet”

The law is the witness and external deposit of our moral life.
Its history is the history of the moral development of the race.

________________

U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Olver Wendell Holmes, Jr.,
speech in Boston, MA
(January 8, 1897)

We should never forget that everything
Hitler did in Germany was legal and
everything the Hungarian freedom fighters
did in Hungary was illegal.

________________

MLK, Jr.
Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)

The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.

________________

U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Olver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Neutrality benefits the aggressor - never the oppressed...

________________

Unk

To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics and
endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty;
to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better,
whether by a healthy child, a garden patch
or a redeemed social condition;
to know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived.

This is to have succeeded.

________________

Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803 - 1882)

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference.
The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference.
And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.

________________

Justice is conscience,
not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity.

Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience
usually recognize also the voice of justice.

________________

I'm an idealist without illusions.

________________

JFK

When wealth is lost, nothing is lost;
when health is lost, something is lost;
when character is lost, all is lost.
________________

Billy Graham

What politicians call 'youthful indiscretions'
should not become life-destroying crimes for everyone else.
________________

Froma Harrop

But divorce hearings in Family Court
have an ugly way of leveling reputations,
bringing everything down to the same basic level
of personal desires, bad habits and private moments turned public.
The chief justice and the bus driver can suffer equal humiliation.

________________

Bob Kerr, Providence Journal

1. In criminal court, bad people are on their best behavior.
2. In civil court, good people are sometimes on their worst behavior.

________________

Unknown

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain
of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.

________________

B. Russell

fiat justicia ruat colelum

(trans: let justice be done though the heavens may fall)

________________

Judge James E. Horton,
Trial judge who, on June 22, 1933, set aside the verdict and death sentence of Haywood Patterson, of the Scottsboro Boys

God grant me
the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

________________

Reinhold Niebuhr