Quotable Quotes: Lawyers
by Miki Saxon
Tuesday’s post involves lawyers, so I thought I’d check out what’s been said about them and it seems they’ve been unappreciated and unloved for centuries.
Clarence Darrow neatly summed up the problem with the law (no surprise there), “The trouble with law is lawyers.”
While Oliver Wendell Holmes offers a wonderful description of what they bill for, “Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke.”
Charles Lamb doesn’t sound too sure of lawyers’ antecedents, “Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.”
Will Rogers offers a typically witty explanation of when ‘ethical’ and ‘legal’ parted ways, “People are getting smarter nowadays; they are letting lawyers, instead of their conscience, be their guide.”
Lucille Ball explains the great contribution lawyers made to one of the most famous shows ever aired on television, “How I Love Lucy was born? We decided that instead of divorce lawyers profiting from our mistakes, we’d profit from them.”
Danny DeVito provides a cogent explanation of why people hire lawyers, “Of course I’ve got lawyers. They are like nuclear weapons, I’ve got em ’cause everyone else has. But as soon as you use them they screw everything up.”
Tammy Bruce reminds us that legal leopards don’t change their spots, “Unfortunately, what many people forget is that judges are just lawyers in robes.”
But it’s Thomas Jefferson who gets the last word today when he drives that point home, “If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?”
Doesn’t seem much has changed over the years.
Flickr image credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
