Quotations of Note

An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way, an arist says a difficult thing in a simple way
--Charles Bukowski

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkeness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves ‘who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous’?
--Marianne Williamson

Dick: The first thing we do , let’s kill all the lawyers
Cade: Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? That parchment, being scribbled over, should undo a man? Some say, the bee stings; but I say, ‘tis the bees wax; for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since
--Shakespeare, Henry VI

Our wrangling lawyers…are so litigious and busy here on earth, that I think they will plead their client’s causes hereafter,--some of them in hell
--Burton

The lawyer is a gentleman who rescues your estate from your enemies and keeps it to himself
--Lord Brougham

The law is a sort of hocus-pocus science, that smiles in yer face while it picks yer pocket; and the glorious uncertainty of it is of mair use to the professors than the justice of it
--Anonymous

Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great
--Emerson

In hominem dicendum est igitur, quum oratio argumentationem non habet
We must make a personal attack, when there is no argumentative basis for our speech
--Cicero

“When you have no case, abuse the plaintiff’s attorney”

Bassanio: Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them; and when you have them, they are not worth the search
--Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare

Nimium altercando veritas amittitur
In a heated argument we are apt to lose sight of the truth

Sir Henry Wotton used to say that critics are like brushers of noblemen's clothes
--Bacon

Blame where you must, be candid where you can,
And be each critic the good-natured man
--Goldsmith. The Good-natured Man

It is better to be unborn than untaught, for ignorance is the root of misfortune
--Plato

Say: Ignorance is the curse of God
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven
--Shakespeare, Henry VI

Don't let us make imaginary evils
When you know we have so many real ones to encounter
--Goldsmith, The Good-natured Man

Tis immortality to die aspiring
As if a man were taken quick to heaven
--George Chapman

There never was in the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs, or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity
--Montaigne

Summum jus, summa injuria
Extreme law, extreme injustice
--Cicero

Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law
--Milton

No law can possibly meet the convenience of everyone; we must be satisfied if it be beneficial on the whole and the majority
--Livy

Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through
--Swift

Acquit the vultures, and condemn the doves
--Juvenal

Corporations cannot treason, nor be outlawed nor excommunicated,
for they have no souls
--Coke, Case of Sutton's Hospital
(Hence the phrase "corporations have no souls to save and no bodies to kick")

Warwick: But in these nice sharp quillets of the law
Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw
--Shakespeare, Henry VI

What is a law, if those who make it
Become the forwardest to break it
--Beattle, The Wolf and the Shepherds