Quotes4study

Why won't sharks eat lawyers?   Professional courtesy.

Unknown

Our magistrates are well aware of this mystery. Their scarlet robes, the ermine in which they wrap themselves like furred cats, the halls in which they administer justice, the _fleurs-de-lis_, and all their august apparatus are most necessary; if the doctors had not their cassocks and their mules, if the lawyers had not their square caps, and their robes four times too wide, they would never have duped the world, which cannot resist so authoritative an appearance. Soldiers alone are not disguised after this fashion, because indeed their part is the more essential, they establish themselves by force, the others by fraud.

Blaise Pascal     The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal

A confesseurs, medecins, avocats, la verite ne cele de ton cas=--Do not conceal the truth from confessors, doctors, and lawyers.

_Fr. Pr._

Make no laws whatever concerning speech, and speech will be free; so soon as you make a declaration on paper that speech shall be free, you will have a hundred lawyers proving that "freedom does not mean abuse, nor liberty license"; and they will define and define freedom out of existence. Let the guarantee of free speech be in every man's determination to use it, and we shall have no need of paper declarations. On the other hand, so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.

Voltairine de Cleyre

Our wrangling lawyers . . . are so litigious and busy here on earth, that I think they will plead their clients' causes hereafter,--some of them in hell.

ROBERT BURTON. 1576-1640.     _Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader._

>Lawyers' houses are built of fools' heads.

_Fr. Pr._

The antithesis of democracy is class dictatorship, whether by groups of bankers, investors, managers, politicians, lawyers or union members. Over a considerable part of the world the unspeakable doctrine is being preached that the ideal of a democratic State is a snare and a delusion. A politician if he denies the existence of the essentials of democracy and denies it in such a way as to create class feeling, is not working in the interest of democracy even though he protests to the high heavens that that is his objective.

Morley, Raymond.

>Lawyers and woodpeckers have long bills.

Proverb.

It had long been true, and prisoners knew this better than anyone, that the poorer you were the more likely you were to end up in jail. This was not just because the poor committed more crimes. In fact, they did. The rich did not have to commit crimes to get what they wanted; the laws were on their side. But when the rich did commit crimes, they often were not prosecuted, and if they were they could get out on bail, hire clever lawyers, get better treatment from judges. Somehow, the jails ended up full of poor black people.

Howard Zinn

>Lawyers are always more ready to get a man into troubles than out of them.

_Goldsmith._

The history of human thought recalls the swinging of a pendulum which takes centuries to swing. After a long period of slumber comes a moment of awakening. Then thought frees herself from the chains with which those interested — rulers, lawyers, clerics — have carefully enwound her. She shatters the chains. She subjects to severe criticism all that has been taught her, and lays bare the emptiness of the religious political, legal, and social prejudices amid which she has vegetated. She starts research in new paths, enriches our knowledge with new discoveries, creates new sciences.

Peter Kropotkin

The mere repetition of the _Cantilena_ of lawyers cannot make it law, unless it can be traced to some competent authority; and if it be irreconcilable, to some clear legal principle.

LORD DENMAN. 1779-1854.     _O'Connell v. The Queen, 11 Clark and Finnelly Reports._

>Lawyers' robes are lined with the obstinacy of litigants.

_It. Pr._

Plus, you did sign a nondisclosure agreement. If you think regular lawyers will shut things down fast, imagine how the lawyers for a notorious criminal organization could keep people from spilling their guts. The world is afraid of supervillains, but even supervillains are afraid of lawyers.

Missy Meyer

>Lawyers will live as long as mine and thine does.

_Ger. Pr._

Fools and obstinate men make lawyers rich.

Proverb.

The charge is prepar'd, the lawyers are met, The judges all ranged,--a terrible show!

JOHN GAY. 1688-1732.     _The Beggar's Opera. Act iii. Sc. 2._

There was once a line marked out by God, through which were divided Heaven and Hell. And thus was chaos banished from the world. The Devil created lawyers to make amends. They argued the thickness of the line until there was room enough within it for all the sins of men to fit. And all the sins of women too. – The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook

Rod Duncan

I mean the word proof not in the sense of the lawyers, who set two half proofs equal to a whole one, but in the sense of a mathematician, where half proof = 0, and it is demanded for proof that every doubt becomes impossible.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

Laws are only words words written on paper, words that change on society's whim and are interpreted differently daily by politicians, lawyers, judges, and policemen. Anyone who believes that all laws should always be obeyed would have made a fine slave catcher. Anyone who believes that all laws are applied equally, despite race, religion, or economic status, is a fool.

Thomas Paine

>Lawyers and painters can soon make black white.

Proverb.

Gens de lois=--Lawyers.

French.

A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.

Benjamin Franklin

From this point of view, the University occupies a position altogether independent of that of the coping-stone of schools for general education, combined with technical schools of Theology, Law, and Medicine. It is not primarily an institution for testing the work of schoolmasters, or for ascertaining the fitness of young men to be curates, lawyers, or doctors.

T. H. Huxley     Aphorisms and Reflections from the Works of T. H. Huxley

The only way to beat the lawyers is to die with nothing.

Will Rogers

>Lawyers, of whose art the basis / Is raising feuds and splitting cases.

_Butler._

>Lawyers are needful to keep us out of law.

Proverb.

When there are too many policemen, there can be no liberty. When there are too many soldiers, there can be no peace. When there are too many lawyers, there can be no justice.

Lin Yutang

Q:    How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?

A:    Whereas the party of the first part, also known as "Lawyer", and the

party of the second part, also known as "Light Bulb", do hereby and forthwith

agree to a transaction wherein the party of the second part shall be removed

from the current position as a result of failure to perform previously agreed

upon duties, i.e., the lighting, elucidation, and otherwise illumination of

the area ranging from the front (north) door, through the entryway, terminating

at an area just inside the primary living area, demarcated by the beginning of

the carpet, any spillover illumination being at the option of the party of the

second part and not required by the aforementioned agreement between the

parties.

    The aforementioned removal transaction shall include, but not be

limited to, the following.  The party of the first part shall, with or without

elevation at his option, by means of a chair, stepstool, ladder or any other

means of elevation, grasp the party of the second part and rotate the party

of the second part in a counter-clockwise direction, this point being tendered

non-negotiable.  Upon reaching a point where the party of the second part

becomes fully detached from the receptacle, the party of the first part shall

have the option of disposing of the party of the second part in a manner

consistent with all relevant and applicable local, state and federal statutes.

Once separation and disposal have been achieved, the party of the first part

shall have the option of beginning installation.  Aforesaid installation shall

occur in a manner consistent with the reverse of the procedures described in

step one of this self-same document, being careful to note that the rotation

should occur in a clockwise direction, this point also being non-negotiable.

The above described steps may be performed, at the option of the party of the

first part, by any or all agents authorized by him, the objective being to

produce the most possible revenue for the Partnership.

Fortune Cookie

Know how to save 5 drowning lawyers?

-- No?

GOOD!

Fortune Cookie

We may not like doctors, but at least they doctor.  Bankers are not ever

popular but at least they bank.  Policeman police and undertakers take

under.  But lawyers do not give us law.  We receive not the gladsome light

of jurisprudence, but rather precedents, objections, appeals, stays,

filings and forms, motions and counter-motions, all at $250 an hour.

        -- Nolo News, summer 1989

Fortune Cookie

"In regards to Oral Roberts' claim that God told him that he would die unless he

 received $20 million by March, God's lawyers have stated that their client has

 not spoken with Roberts for several years.  Off the record, God has stated that

 "If I had wanted to ice the little toad, I would have done it a long time ago."

        -- Dennis Miller, SNL News

Fortune Cookie

A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.

        -- Ben Franklin

Fortune Cookie

Doctors and lawyers must go to school for years and years, often with

little sleep and with great sacrifice to their first wives.

        -- Roy G. Blount, Jr.

Fortune Cookie

    A man walked into a bar with his alligator and asked the bartender,

"Do you serve lawyers here?".

    "Sure do," replied the bartender.

    "Good," said the man.  "Give me a beer, and I'll have a lawyer for

my 'gator."

Fortune Cookie

If reporters don't know that truth is plural, they ought to be lawyers.

        -- Tom Wicker

Fortune Cookie

Bierman's Laws of Contracts:

    (1) In any given document, you can't cover all the "what if's".

    (2) Lawyers stay in business resolving all the unresolved "what if's".

    (3) Every resolved "what if" creates two unresolved "what if's".

Fortune Cookie

I went home with a waitress,

The way I always do.

How I was I to know?

She was with the Russians too.

I was gambling in Havana,

I took a little risk.

Send lawyers, guns, and money,

Dad, get me out of this.

        -- Warren Zevon, "Lawyers, Guns and Money"

Fortune Cookie

"Send lawyers, guns and money..."

        -- Lyrics from a Warren Zevon song

Fortune Cookie

Why are many scientists using lawyers for medical

experiments instead of rats?

    a)  There are more lawyers than rats.

    b)  The scientist's don't become as

         emotionally attached to them.

    c)  There are some things that even rats

        won't do for money.

Fortune Cookie

The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

        -- Wm. Shakespeare, "Henry VI", Part IV

Fortune Cookie

I'm having BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS about the INSIPID WIVES of smug and

wealthy CORPORATE LAWYERS ...

Fortune Cookie

Divorce is a game played by lawyers.

        -- Cary Grant

Fortune Cookie

    In "King Henry VI, Part II," Shakespeare has Dick Butcher suggest to

his fellow anti-establishment rabble-rousers, "The first thing we do, let's

kill all the lawyers."  That action may be extreme but a similar sentiment

was expressed by Thomas K. Connellan, president of The Management Group, Inc.

Speaking to business executives in Chicago and quoted in Automotive News,

Connellan attributed a measure of America's falling productivity to an excess

of attorneys and accountants, and a dearth of production experts.  Lawyers</p>

and accountants "do not make the economic pie any bigger; they only figure

out how the pie gets divided.  Neither profession provides any added value

to product."

    According to Connellan, the highly productive Japanese society has

10 lawyers and 30 accountants per 100,000 population.  The U.S. has 200

>lawyers and 700 accountants.  This suggests that "the U.S. proportion of

pie-bakers and pie-dividers is way out of whack."  Could Dick Butcher have

been an efficiency expert?

        -- Motor Trend, May 1983

Fortune Cookie

mixed emotions:

    Watching a bus-load of lawyers plunge off a cliff.

    With five empty seats.

Fortune Cookie

Oh Lord, won't you buy me a 4BSD?

My friends all got sources, so why can't I see?

Come all you moby hackers, come sing it out with me:

To hell with the lawyers from AT&T!

Fortune Cookie

What do you have when you have six lawyers buried up to their necks in sand?

Not enough sand.

Fortune Cookie

If you throw a New Year's Party, the worst thing that you can do would be

to throw the kind of party where your guests wake up today, and call you to

say they had a nice time.  Now you'll be be expected to throw another party

next year.

    What you should do is throw the kind of party where your guest wake

up several days from now and call their lawyers to find out if they've been

indicted for anything.  You want your guests to be so anxious to avoid a

recurrence of your party that they immediately start planning parties of their

own, a year in advance, just to prevent you from having another one ...

    If your party is successful, the police will knock on your door,

unless your party is very successful in which case they will lob tear gas

through your living room window.  As host, your job is to make sure that

they don't arrest anybody.  Or if they're dead set on arresting someone,

your job is to make sure it isn't you ...

        -- Dave Barry

Fortune Cookie

The animals are not as stupid as one thinks -- they have neither

doctors nor lawyers.

        -- L. Docquier

Fortune Cookie

Rattling around the back of my head is a disturbing image of something I

saw at the airport ... Now I'm remembering, those giant piles of computer

magazines right next to "People" and "Time" in the airport store.  Does

it bother anyone else that half the world is being told all of our hard-won

secrets of computer technology?  Remember how all the lawyers cried foul

when "How to Avoid Probate" was published?  Are they taking no-fault

insurance lying down?  No way!  But at the current rate it won't be long

before there are stacks of the "Transactions on Information Theory" at the

A&P checkout counters.  Who's going to be impressed with us electrical

engineers then?  Are we, as the saying goes, giving away the store?

        -- Robert W. Lucky, IEEE President

Fortune Cookie

If there were a school for, say, sheet metal workers, that after three

years left its graduates as unprepared for their careers as does law

school, it would be closed down in a minute, and no doubt by lawyers.

        -- Michael Levin, "The Socratic Method"

Fortune Cookie

Some men are heterosexual, and some are bisexual, and some men don't think

about sex at all... they become lawyers.

        -- Woody Allen

Fortune Cookie

Q:    Why does Washington have the most lawyers per capita and

    New Jersey the most toxic waste dumps?

A:    God gave New Jersey first choice.

Fortune Cookie

When the Apple IIc was introduced, the informative copy led off with a couple

of asterisked sentences:

    It weighs less than 8 pounds.*

    And costs less than $1,300.**

In tiny type were these "fuller explanations":

      * Don't asterisks make you suspicious as all get out?  Well, all

    this means is that the IIc alone weights 7.5 pounds. The power

    pack, monitor, an extra disk drive, a printer and several bricks

    will make the IIc weigh more. Our lawyers were concerned that you

    might not be able to figure this out for yourself.

     ** The FTC is concerned about price fixing. You can pay more if

    you really want to.  Or less.

        -- Forbes

Fortune Cookie

A friend of mine won't get a divorce, because he hates lawyers more than he

hates his wife.

Fortune Cookie

Q:    Why don't lawyers go to the beach?

A:    The cats keep trying to bury them.

Fortune Cookie

VI:

    A hungry dog hunts best.

    A hungrier dog hunts even better.

VII:

    Decreased business base increases overhead.

    So does increased business base.

VIII:

    The most unsuccessful four years in the education of a cost-estimator

    is fifth grade arithmetic.

IX:

    Acronyms and abbreviations should be used to the maximum extent

    possible to make trivial ideas profound.  Q.E.D.

X:

    Bulls do not win bull fights; people do.

    People do not win people fights; lawyers do.

        -- Norman Augustine

Fortune Cookie

Q:    How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?

A:    You won't find a lawyer who can change a light bulb.  Now, if

    you're looking for a lawyer to screw a light bulb...

Fortune Cookie

Q:    How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?

A:    One.  Only it's his light bulb when he's done.

Fortune Cookie

    We don't claim Interactive EasyFlow is good for anything -- if you

think it is, great, but it's up to you to decide.  If Interactive EasyFlow

doesn't work: tough.  If you lose a million because Interactive EasyFlow

messes up, it's you that's out the million, not us.  If you don't like this

disclaimer: tough.  We reserve the right to do the absolute minimum provided

by law, up to and including nothing.

    This is basically the same disclaimer that comes with all software

packages, but ours is in plain English and theirs is in legalese.

    We didn't really want to include any disclaimer at all, but our

>lawyers insisted.  We tried to ignore them but they threatened us with the

attack shark at which point we relented.

        -- Haven Tree Software Limited, "Interactive EasyFlow"

Fortune Cookie

Let us remember that ours is a nation of lawyers and order.

Fortune Cookie

Why won't sharks eat lawyers?   Professional courtesy.

Fortune Cookie

Why does New Jersey have more toxic waste dumps and California have

more lawyers?

New Jersey had first choice.

Fortune Cookie

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Fortune Cookie

"Pity on you, sir! It is youth demanding pity of the old man of ninety-one! You are entering into life, I am leaving it; you go to the play, to balls, to the cafe, to the billiard-hall; you have wit, you please the women, you are a handsome fellow; as for me, I spit on my brands in the heart of summer; you are rich with the only riches that are really such, I possess all the poverty of age; infirmity, isolation! You have your thirty-two teeth, a good digestion, bright eyes, strength, appetite, health, gayety, a forest of black hair; I have no longer even white hair, I have lost my teeth, I am losing my legs, I am losing my memory; there are three names of streets that I confound incessantly, the Rue Charlot, the Rue du Chaume, and the Rue Saint-Claude, that is what I have come to; you have before you the whole future, full of sunshine, and I am beginning to lose my sight, so far am I advancing into the night; you are in love, that is a matter of course, I am beloved by no one in all the world; and you ask pity of me! Parbleu! Moliere forgot that. If that is the way you jest at the courthouse, Messieurs the lawyers, I sincerely compliment you. You are droll."

Victor Hugo     Les Miserables

And can Katerina Ivanovna, with her intelligence, her morbid sensitiveness, have failed to understand that people would talk like that? She must have understood it, yet she made up her mind to tell everything. Of course, all these nasty little suspicions as to the truth of her story only arose afterwards and at the first moment all were deeply impressed by it. As for the judges and the lawyers, they listened in reverent, almost shame-faced silence to Katerina Ivanovna. The prosecutor did not venture upon even one question on the subject. Fetyukovitch made a low bow to her. Oh, he was almost triumphant! Much ground had been gained. For a man to give his last four thousand on a generous impulse and then for the same man to murder his father for the sake of robbing him of three thousand--the idea seemed too incongruous. Fetyukovitch felt that now the charge of theft, at least, was as good as disproved. "The case" was thrown into quite a different light. There was a wave of sympathy for Mitya. As for him.... I was told that once or twice, while Katerina Ivanovna was giving her evidence, he jumped up from his seat, sank back again, and hid his face in his hands. But when she had finished, he suddenly cried in a sobbing voice:

Fyodor Dostoyevsky     The Brothers Karamazov

"Excuse me, madame," said Debray coldly, "I had your permission to do so, and I have made use of it. There are, then, 40,000 francs for your share, besides the 100,000 you furnished me to begin with, making in all 1,340,000 francs for your portion. Now, madame, I took the precaution of drawing out your money the day before yesterday; it is not long ago, you see, and I was in continual expectation of being called on to deliver up my accounts. There is your money,--half in bank-notes, the other half in checks payable to bearer. I say there, for as I did not consider my house safe enough, or lawyers sufficiently discreet, and as landed property carries evidence with it, and moreover since you have no right to possess anything independent of your husband, I have kept this sum, now your whole fortune, in a chest concealed under that closet, and for greater security I myself concealed it there.

Alexandre Dumas, Pere     The Count of Monte Cristo

"At that point one of the lawyers asked him, as it were incidentally, the most simple question, 'Wasn't it Smerdyakov killed him?' Then, as we expected, he was horribly angry at our having anticipated him and caught him unawares, before he had time to pave the way to choose and snatch the moment when it would be most natural to bring in Smerdyakov's name. He rushed at once to the other extreme, as he always does, and began to assure us that Smerdyakov could not have killed him, was not capable of it. But don't believe him, that was only his cunning; he didn't really give up the idea of Smerdyakov; on the contrary, he meant to bring him forward again; for, indeed, he had no one else to bring forward, but he would do that later, because for the moment that line was spoiled for him. He would bring him forward perhaps next day, or even a few days later, choosing an opportunity to cry out to us, 'You know I was more skeptical about Smerdyakov than you, you remember that yourselves, but now I am convinced. He killed him, he must have done!' And for the present he falls back upon a gloomy and irritable denial. Impatience and anger prompted him, however, to the most inept and incredible explanation of how he looked into his father's window and how he respectfully withdrew. The worst of it was that he was unaware of the position of affairs, of the evidence given by Grigory.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky     The Brothers Karamazov

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