Professional Lawyer Quotes

I don't have to negotiate an arms agreement with Great Britain or with France.

No society can possibly be built on a denial of individual freedom.

Coercion cannot but result in chaos in the end.

It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual.

I don't have much patience for anyone who denies that this challenge is real.

For me popular violence is as much an obstruction in our path as the Government violence.

Ahimsa must be placed before everything else while it is professed. Then alone it becomes irresistible.

A lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me.

With those who wish to think amiss of me, I have learnt to be perfectly indifferent: but where I know a mind to be ingenuous, andto need only truth to set it to rights, I cannot be as passive.

Now in regard to trades and other means of livelihood, which ones are to be considered becoming to a gentleman and which ones are vulgar, we have been taught, in general, as follows. First, those means of livelihood are rejected as undesirable which incur people's ill-will, as those of tax-gatherers and usurers. Unbecoming to a gentleman, too, and vulgar are the means of livelihood of all hired workmen whom we pay for mere manual labour, not for artistic skill; for in their case the very wage they receive is a pledge of their slavery.

Agriculture is at the same time the most tranquil, healthy, and independent occupation.

No country and no people can be free and ignorant at the same time.

Self-suppression is often necessary in the interest of truth and nonviolence.

The purpose of education is to free the student from the tyranny of the present.

People are less certain of their national identities or their place in the world. It starts looking different and disorienting. And there is no doubt that that has produced populist movements both from the left and from the right in many countries in Europe.

True leadership will not be measured by the ability to muzzle dissent, or to intimidate and harass political opponents at home. The people of the world want change. They will not long tolerate those who are on the wrong side of history.

Purification is never for the selfishly idle, it accrues only to the selflessly industrious.

You see I am an enthusiast on the subject of the arts. But it is an enthusiasm of which I am not ashamed, as its object is to improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase their reputation, to reconcile to them the respect of the world, and procure them its praise.

There are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short, for they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect.

The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.

Nothing in oratory is more important than to win for the orator the favour of his hearer, and to have the latter so affected as to be swayed by something resembling an impulse of the spirit impetu quodam animi or emotion perturbatione, rather than by judgment or deliberation. For men decide far more problems by hate, or love, or lust, or rage, or sorrow, or joy, or hope, or fear, or illusion, or some other inward emotion aliqua permotione mentis, than by reality or authority, or any legal standard, or judicial precedent or statute.

And whilst he may not claim superiority by reason of learning, I myself must not withold that meed of homage that learning, wherever it resides, always commands.

There is no quality I would rather have, and be thought to have, than gratitude. For it is not only the greatest virtue, but is the mother of all the rest.

Most codes extend their definitions of treason to acts not really against one's country. They do not distinguish between acts against the government, and acts against the oppressions of the government. The latter are virtues, yet have furnished more victims to the executioner than the former. Real treasons are rare; oppressions frequent. The unsuccessful strugglers against tyranny have been the chief martyrs of treason laws in all countries.

Tranquility is the old man's milk.

Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?

You want to be commander-in-chief? You can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States, even when it's not politically convenient.

Mankind has to get out of violence only through non-violence.

The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend.

The best interpreter of the law is custom.

I have much confidence that we shall proceed successfully for ages to come. My hope of its duration is built much on the enlargement of the resources of life going hand in hand with the enlargement of territory.

I hope you don’t listen to this. I hope you choose to broaden, and not contract, your ambit of concern.

I once Experimented with marijuna, next thing I know I'm waking up with blood on my hands.......and not my own blood.

My principles, and those always received by the republicans, do not admit to removing any person from office merely for a difference of political opinion. Malversations in office, and the exerting of official influence to control the freedom of election are good causes for removal.

Every man's friend is no man's friend.

My creed of nonviolence does not favour the punishment of thieves and dacoits and even murderers.

Taste cannot be controlled by law.

The days of life are consumed, one by one, without an object beyond the present moment; ever flying from the ennui of that, yet carrying it with us; eternally in pursuit of happiness, which keeps eternally before us. If death or bankruptcy happen to trip us out of the circle, it is matter for the buzz of the evening, and is completely forgotten by the next morning.

It was only in South Africa that I got over this shyness, though I never completely overcame it. It was impossible for me to speak impromptu. I hesitated whenever I had to face strange audiences and avoided making a speech whenever I could. Even today I do not think I could or would even be inclined to keep a meeting of friends engaged in idle talk.

I don't want them to kill no hog . . . . I want a man to go to that chair, on his own two feet.

There can be no friendship between cowards, or cowards and brave men.

I had learnt at the onset not to carry on public work with borrowed money.

The elephant needs a thousand times more food than the ant but that is not an indication of inequality.

The incredible story of progress that is America has always been built by those who ask why, what if, and why not. Our schools must begin instilling that wonder in our children again so that their generation will unite around the next great project of our time, whether it be declaring America energy independent or launching the next great technological revolution.

I was pretty realistic to people about what we could get done, and the situation we were in, and trying to tamp down expectations. If you listen to my stump speeches, if you listen to what I said at Grant Park, I kept on saying, "Look, this is not just about me, this is not going to happen in one year, or one term, or even one presidency." And we tried to layer into everything we were saying a sense of hope, but also realism.

Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind.

So don't get cynical. Cynicism didn't put a man on the moon. Cynicism has never won a war, or cured a disease, or built a business, or fed a young mind. Cynicism is a choice. And hope will always be a better choice.

A little revolution is a good thing.

Many of the opposition [to the new Federal Constitution] wish to take from Congress the power of internal taxation. Calculation has convinced me that this would be very mischievous.

I have great respect for both President Obama and the office that he holds

I think our basic principle that this is a free market system and that that has worked for us, that it creates innovation and risk taking, I think that's a principle that we've gotta hold to as well. But what I don't wanna do is get bottled up in a lot of ideology and is this conservative or liberal. My interest is finding something that works.

The more peculiarly his own a man's character is, the better it fits him.

Every man has two countries: his own and France.

The false is nothing but an imitation of the true.

All our philosophy is as dry as dust if it is not immediately translated into some act of living service.

The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.

Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them.

Reason is the mistress and queen of all things.[Lat., Domina omnium et regina ratio.]

The safety of the people shall be the highest law.