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Every One Knows That The Heavenly Bodies Move In Certain Paths In Relation To Each Other With Seeming Consistency And Regularity Which We Call [physical] Law. ... No One Attributes Freewill Or Motive To The Material World. Is The Conduct Of Man Or The Other Animals Any More Subject To Whim Or Choice Than The Action Of The Planets? ... We Know That Man's Every Act Is Induced By Motives That Led Or Urged Him Here Or There; That The Sequence Of Cause And Effect Runs Through The Whole Universe, And Is Nowhere More Compelling Than With Man.

-Clarence Darrow

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Every One Knows That

Clarence Darrow

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Every One Knows That The Heavenly Bodies Move In Certain Paths In Relation To Each Other With Seeming Consistency And Regularity Which We Call [physical] Law. ... No One Attributes Freewill Or Motive To The Material World. Is The Conduct Of Man Or The Other Animals Any More Subject To Whim Or Choice Than The Action Of The Planets? ... We Know That Man's Every Act Is Induced By Motives That Led Or Urged Him Here Or There; That The Sequence Of Cause And Effect Runs Through The Whole Universe, And Is Nowhere More Compelling Than With Man.

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Some Of You Say Religion Makes People Happy. So Does Laughing Gas.

Someday I Hope To Write A Book Where The Royalties Will Pay For The Copies I Give Away.

True Patriotism Hates Injustice In Its Own Land More Than Anywhere Else.

Those Who Enjoy The Emotion Of Hating Are Much Like The Groups Who Sate Their Thirst For Blood By Hunting And Hounding To Death Helpless Animals As An Outlet For Their Emotions.

If Today You Can Take A Thing Like Evolution And Make It A Crime To Teach It In The Public School, Tomorrow You Can Make It A Crime To Teach It In The Private Schools, And The Next Year You Can Make It A Crime To Teach It To The Hustings Or In The Church. At The Next Session You May Ban Books And Newspapers. Soon You May Set Catholic Against Protestant And Protestant Against Protestant, And Try To Foist Your Own Religion Upon The Minds Of Men.

Sympathy Is The Child Of Imagination

...finally Men Were Saved Only Through God's Son Dying For Them, And That Unless Human Beings Believed This Silly, Impossible And Wicked Story They Were Doomed To Hell? Can Anyone With Intelligence Really Believe That A Child Born Today Should Be Doomed Because The Snake Tempted Eve And Eve Tempted Adam? To Believe That Is Not God-worship; It Is Devil-worship.

Do I Need To Argue To Your Honor That Cruelty Only Breeds Cruelty? That Hatred Only Causes Hatred; That If There Is Any Way To Soften This Human Heart Which Is Hard Enough At Its Best, If There Is Any Way To Kill Evil And Hatred And All That Goes With It, It Is Not Through Evil And Hatred And Cruelty; It Is Through Charity, And Love, And Understanding?

The Best Way To Understand Somebody Else Is To Put Yourself In His Place.

The World Is Made Up For The Most Part Of Morons And Natural Tyrants, Sure Of Themselves, Strong In Their Own Opinions, Never Doubting Anything.

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.

It Is Just As Often A Great Misfortune To Be The Child Of The Rich As It Is To Be The Child Of The Poor. Wealth Has Its Misfortunes. Too Much, Too Great Opportunity And Advantage Given To A Child Has Its Misfortunes.

None Meet Life Honestly And Few Heroically.

If There Is To Be Any Permanent Improvement In Man And Any Better Social Order, It Must Come Mainly From The Education And Humanizing Of Man.

Do You Think You Can Cure The Hatreds And The Maladjustments Of The World By Hanging Them? You Simply Show Your Ignorance And Your Hate When You Say It. You May Here And There Cure Hatred With Love And Understanding, But You Can Only Add Fuel To The Flames By Cruelty And Hate.

Most Lawyers Only Tell You About The Cases They Win. I Can Tell You About Some I Lose. A Lawyer Who Wins All His Cases Does Not Have Many.

There Are Two Things That Kill A Genius - A Fatal Disease And Contentment.

Every Instinct That Is Found In Any Man Is In All Men. The Strength Of The Emotion May Not Be So Overpowering, The Barriers Against Possession Not So Insurmountable, The Urge To Accomplish The Desire Less Keen. With Some, Inhibitions And Urges May Be Neutralized By Other Tendencies. But With Every Being The Primal Emotions Are There. All Men Have An Emotion To Kill; When They Strongly Dislike Some One They Involuntarily Wish He Was Dead. I Have Never Killed Any One, But I Have Read Some Obituary Notices With Great Satisfaction.

The Origin Of The Absurd Idea Of Immortal Life Is Easy To Discover; It Is Kept Alive By Hope And Fear, By Childish Faith, And By Cowardice.

Lawyers Are Natural Politicians.

There Is No Such Crime As A Crime Of Thought; There Are Only Crimes Of Action.

To Think Is To Differ.

I Never Wanted To See Anybody Die, But There Are A Few Obituary Notices I Have Read With Pleasure.

Chase After The Truth Like All Hell.

I Don't Like Spinach, And I'm Glad I Don't, Because If I Liked It I'd Eat It, And I Just Hate It.

It Is Not For The World To Judge, But To Crown Them All Alike. Each And All Lived Out Their Own Being, Did Their Work In Their Own Way, And Carried A Reluctant, Stupid Humanity To Greater Possibilities And Grander Heights.

The Truth Is, No Man Is White And No Man Is Black. We Are All Freckled.

In Spite Of All The Yearnings Of Men, No One Can Produce A Single Fact Or Reason To Support The Belief In God And In Personal Immortality.

No Nation Can Be Really Great That Is Held Together By Gatling Guns, And No True Loyalty Can Be Induced And Kept Through Fear.

With All Their Faults, Trade Unions Have Done More For Humanity Than Any Other Organization Of Men That Ever Existed. They Have Done More For Decency, For Honesty, For Education, For The Betterment Of The Race, For The Developing Of Character In Men, Than Any Other Association Of Men.

Religion Is Based On The Insistence That Over And Above All Is A Purpose And A Guiding Hand That Is Beneficent And Kind, And Would Not Leave A Hair Unnumbered Or Let A Sparrow Fall Unnoticed To The Ground. Those Who Cherish Such Hallucinations Forget That The All-loving Power Is Inflicting Tuberculosis, Cancer, Famine, And Pestilence On The Trusting, Simple Sons Of Men.

The Only Real Lawyers Are Trial Lawyers, And Trial Lawyers Try Cases To Juries.

My Constitution Was Destroyed Long Ago; Now I Am Living Under The Bylaws.

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Every Thought Of Pity Is Like The Balm Of Gilead To Our Souls.

No Man Is A Good Citizen, A Good Neighbor, A Good Friend, Or A Good Man Just Because He Obeys The Law. The Intrinsic Worth Is Determined Mainly By The Intrinsic Make-up.

Life Is A Never-ending School, And The Really Important Lessons All Tend To Teach Man His Proper Relation To The Environment Where He Must Live.

Everything Serious That He Says Is A Joke And Everything Humorous That He Says Is Dead Serious.

The Trouble With Law Is Lawyers.

Instead Of Yielding To Idle Conversation It Might Profit One To Cultivate Silence And Contemplation.

I Had Grown Tired Of Standing In The Lean And Lonely Front Line Facing The Greatest Enemy That Ever Confronted Man -- Public Opinion.

You Can't Get To A Pleasant Place To Be At Unless You Use Pleasant Methods To Get There. When You Are Dealing With A Human Society The Means Is Fully As Important As The End.

You Can Only Be Free If I Am Free.

Calvin Coolidge Was The Greatest Man Who Ever Came Out Of Plymouth Corner, Vermont.

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When I Was A Boy I Was Told That Anybody Could Become President. I'm Beginning To Believe It.

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Whenever I Hear People Discussing Birth Control, I Always Remember That I Was Fifth.

No Other Offense Has Ever Been Visited With Such Severe Penalties As Seeking To Help The Oppressed.

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It Is Bigotry For Public Schools To Teach Only One Theory Of Origins.

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The Constitution Is A Delusion And A Snare If The Weakest And Humblest Man In The Land Cannot Be Defended In His Right To Speak And His Right To Think As Much As The Strongest In The Land.

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Hoover, If Elected, Will Do One Thing That Is Almost Incomprehensible To The Human Mind: He Will Make A Great Man Out Of Coolidge.

Even If You Do Learn To Speak Correct English, Whom Are You Going To Speak It To?

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To Say That The Universe Was Here Last Year, Or Millions Of Years Ago, Does Not Explain Its Origin. This Is Still A Mystery. As To The Question Of The Origin Of Things, Man Can Only Wonder And Doubt And Guess.

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In Life One Cannot Eat His Cake And Have It, Too; He Must Make His Choice And Then Do The Best He Can To Be Content To Go The Way His Judgment Leads.

The Difference Between The Child And The Man Lies Chiefly In The Unlimited Confidence And Buoyancy Of Youth.

The Really Intelligent Are As Abnormal As The Defective. The Great Masses Of Men Are Rather Mediocre, And Those Above And Below Are Exceptions.

A Criminal Is Someone Without The Capital To Incorporate

Religious Doctrines Do Not And Clearly Cannot Be Adopted As The Criminal Code Of A State.

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Criminal Cases Receive The Attention Of The Press. The Cruel And Disagreeable Things Of Life Are More Apt To Get The Newspaper Space Than The Pleasant Ones. It Must Be That Most People Enjoy Hearing Of And Reading About The Troubles Of Others. Perhaps Men Unconsciously Feel That They Rise In The General Level As Others Go Down.

I Am An Agnostic; I Do Not Pretend To Know What Many Ignorant Men Are Sure Of.

I Have Suffered From Being Misunderstood, But I Would Have Suffered A Hell Of A Lot More If I Had Been Understood.

If A Man Is Happy In America, It Is Considered He Is Doing Something Wrong.

It May Never Come, But I Fancy Than No Man Who Has Sympathy For The Human Race Does Not Wish That Sometime Those Who Labor Should Have The Whole Product Of Their Toil. Probably It Will Never Come, But I Wish That The Time Might Come When Men Who Work In The Industries Would Own The Industries.

Every Government On Earth Is The Personification Of Violence And Force, And Yet The Doctine Of Non-resistance Is As Old As Human Thought - Even More Than This, The Instinct Is As Old As Life Upon The Earth.

To Be An Effective Criminal Defense Counsel, An Attorney Must Be Prepared To Be Demanding, Outrageous, Irreverent, Blasphemous, A Rogue, A Renegade, And A Hated, Isolated, And Lonely Person - Few Love A Spokesman For The Despised And The Damned.

Autobiography Is Never Entirely True. No One Can Get The Right Perspective On Himself. Every Fact Is Colored By Imagination And Dream.

A Prison Is Confining To The Body, But Whether It Affects The Mind, Depends Entirely Upon The Mind.

I Have Never Killed Any One, But I Have Read Some Obituary Notices With Great Satisfaction.

There Is A Soul Of Truth In Error; There Is A Soul Of Good In Evil.

Freedom Comes From Human Beings, Rather Than From Laws And Institutions.

Education Was In Danger From The Source That Always Hampered It—religious Fanaticism.

Scopes Isn’t On Trial; Civilization Is On Trial.

I Am Sure Of Very Little, And I Shouldn't Be Surprised If Those Things Were Wrong.

Ancestors Do Not Mean So Much. The Rebel Who Succeeds Generally Makes It Easier For The Posterity That Follows Him; So These Descendants Are Usually Contented And Smug And Soft. Rebels Are Made From Life, Not Ancestors.

Wars Always Bring About A Conservative Reaction. They Overwhelm And Destroy Patient And Careful Efforts To Improve The Condition Of Man.

Nothing Is So Loved By Tyrants As Obedient Subjects.

I Knew That It Is Out Of The Question To Have Honest, Economical Government While A Few Are Inordinately Rich And The Great Mass Of Men Are Poor. In Fact, It Is To Be Doubted If Anything Really Worthwhile Can Be Done Until There Is A Fairer Distribution Of Wealth.

Distribution Of Wealth

The Law Does Not Pretend To Punish Everything That Is Dishonest. That Would Seriously Interfere With Business.

A Jury Is More Apt To Be Unbiased And Independent Than A Court, But They Very Seldom Stand Up Against Strong Public Clamor. Judges Naturally Believe The Defendant Is Guilty.

I Am Simply An Agnostic. I Haven't Yet Had Time Or Opportunity To Explore The Universe, And I Don't Know What I Might Run On To In Some Nook Or Corner.

No Iconoclast Can Possibly Escape The Severest Criticism.

I Had A Vivid Imagination. Not Only Could I Put Myself In The Other Person's Place, But I Could Not Avoid Doing So. My Sympathies Always Went Out To The Weak, The Suffering, And The Poor. Realizing Their Sorrows I Tried To Relieve Them In Order That I Myself Might Be Relieved.

Vivid Imagination

There Are A Lot Of Myths Which Make The Human Race Cruel And Barbarous And Unkind. Good And Evil, Sin And Crime, Free Will And The Like Delusions Made To Excuse God For Damning Men And To Excuse Men For Crucifying Each Other.

Working People Have Alot Of Bad Habits, But The Worst Of These Is Work.

Never Forget, Almost Every Case Has Been Won Or Lost When The Jury Is Sworn.

Anyone Can Spot A Lie, Unless He Is In Need Of That Lie.

Everybody Is A Potential Murderer. I've Never Killed Anyone, But I Frequently Get Satisfaction Reading The Obituary Notices.

Laws Have Come Down To Us From Old Customs And Folk-ways Based On Primitive Ideas Of Man's Origin, Capacity And Responsibility.

I Am An Agnostic As To The Question Of God.

In The Great Flood Of Human Life That Is Spawned Upon The Earth, It Is Not Often That A Man Is Born.

The Ability And Inclination To Use Physical Strength Is No Indication Of Bravery Or Tenacity To Life. The Greatest Cowards Are Often The Greatest Bullies. Nothing Is Cheaper And More Common Than Physical Bravery.

Men Have Always Been Obliged To Fight To Preserve Liberty. Constitutions And Laws Do Not Safeguard Liberty. It Can Be Preserved Only By A Tolerant People, And This Means Eternal Conflict.

It’s Not Bad People I Fear So Much As Good People. When A Person Is Sure That He Is Good, He Is Nearly Hopeless; He Gets Cruel- He Believes In Punishment.

I Am Always Suspicious Of Righteous Indignation. Nothing Is More Cruel Than Righteous Indignation.

Righteous Indignation

There Is No Such Thing As Justice - In Or Out Of Court.

I Cannot Tell And I Shall Never Know How Many Words Of Mine Might Have Given Birth To Cruelty In Place Of Love And Kindness And Charity.

I Feel As I Always Have, That The Earth Is The Home And The Only Home Of Man, And I Am Convinced That Whatever He Is To Get Out Of His Existence He Must Get While He Is Here.

I Am Not Afraid Of Any God In The Universe Who Would Send Me Or Any Other Man Or Woman To Hell. If There Were Such A Being, He Would Not Be A God; He Would Be A Devil.

The Truth Is Always Modern And There Never Comes A Time When It Is Safe To Give It Voice.

We Are Born And We Die; And Between These Two Most Important Events In Our Lives More Or Less Time Elapses Which We Have To Waste Somehow Or Other. In The End It Does Not Seem To Matter Much Whether We Have Done So In Making Money, Or Practicing Law, Or Reading Or Playing, Or In Any Other Way, As Long As We Felt We Were Deriving A Maximum Of Happiness Out Of Our Doings.

Can Any Rational Person Believe That The Bible Is Anything But A Human Document? We Now Know Pretty Well Where The Various Books Came From, And About When They Were Written. We Know That They Were Written By Human Beings Who Had No Knowledge Of Science, Little Knowledge Of Life, And Were Influenced By The Barbarous Morality Of Primitive Times, And Were Grossly Ignorant Of Most Things That Men Know Today.

The Law Is A Horrible Business.

Just Think Of The Tragedy Of Teaching Children Not To Doubt.

As Long As The World Shall Last There Will Be Wrongs, And If No Man Objected And No Man Rebelled, Those Wrongs Would Last Forever.

Chloroform Unfit Children. Show Them The Same Mercy That Is Shown Beasts That Are No Longer Fit To Live.

I Am A Friend Of The Working Man, And I Would Rather Be His Friend, Than Be One.

If A Man Really Has Charge Of His Destiny At All, He Should Have Something To Say About Getting Born; And I Only Came Through By A Hair's-breadth. What Had I To Do With This Momentous First Step? In The Language Of The Lawyer, I Was Not Even A Party Of The Second Part.

The Truth Is That Brains Have Little To Do With Either The Making Or Accumulating Of Money.

The Purpose Of Life Is Living. Men And Women Should Get The Most They Can Out Of Their Lives.

Liberty Is The Most Jealous And Exacting Mistress That Can Beguile The Brain And Soul Of Man. She Will Have Nothing From Him Who Will Not Give Her All. She Knows That His Pretended Love Serves But To Betray. But When Once The Fierce Heat Of Her Quenchless, Lustrous Eyes Have Burned Into The Victim's Heart, He Will Know No Other Smile But Hers.

The Audience That Storms The Box-office Of The Theater To Gain Entrance To A Sensational Show Is Small And Sleepy Compared With The Throng That Crashes The Courthouse Door When Something Concerning Real Life And Death Is To Be Laid Bare To The Public.

Great Wealth Often Curses All Who Touch It.

Common Experience Shows How Much Rarer Is Moral Courage Than Physical Bravery. A Thousand Men Will March To The Mouth Of The Cannon Where One Man Will Dare Espouse An Unpopular Cause . . . True Courage And Manhood Come From The Consciousness Of The Right Attitude Toward The World, The Faith In One's Purpose, And The Sufficiency Of One's Own Approval As A Justification For One's Own Acts.

Lost Causes Are The Only Ones Worth Fighting For.

The Fact That There Is A General Belief In A Future Life Is No Evidence Of Its Truth

Most Jury Trials Are Contests Between The Rich And Poor.

All Men Have An Emotion To Kill; When They Strongly Dislike Someone They Involuntarily Wish He Was Dead. I Have Never Killed Any One, But I Have Read Some Obituary Notices With Great Satisfaction.

Dislike Someone

The First Half Of Our Lives Are Ruined By Our Parents And The Second Half By Our Children.

We're All Killers At Heart . . . . I Have Never Taken Anybody's Life, But I Have Often Read Obituary Notices With Considerable Satisfaction.

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Do You, Good People, Believe That Adam And Eve Were Created In The Garden Of Eden And That They Were Forbidden To Eat From The Tree Of Knowledge? I Do. The Church Has Always Been Afraid Of That Tree. It Still Is Afraid Of Knowledge. Some Of You Say Religion Makes People Happy. So Does Laughing Gas. So Does Whiskey. I Believe In The Brain Of Man.

We Are Turning Our Prisons Into Living Tombs, Inhabited By Doomed Men Living In Everlasting Blank Despair.

Physical Deformity, Calls Forth Our Charity. But The Infinite Misfortune Of Moral Deformity Calls Forth Nothing But Hatred And Vengeance.

I Am Pleading For The Future; I Am Pleading For A Time When Hatred And Cruelty Will Not Control The Hearts Of Men. When We Can Learn By, Reason And Judgment And Understanding And Faith That All Life Is Worth Saving, And That Mercy Is The Highest Attribute Of Man.

In This Dilemma They Evolved The Theory Of Natural Rights. If 'natural Rights' Means Anything It Means That The Individual Rights Are To Be Determined By The Conduct Of Nature. But Nature Knows Nothing About Rights In The Sense Of Human Conception.

Justice Must Take Account Of Infinite Circumstances Which A Human Being Cannot Understand.

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If There Is A Soul, What Is It, And Where Did It Come From, And Where Does It Go? Can Anyone Who Is Guided By His Reason Possibly Imagine A Soul Independent Of A Body, Or The Place Of Its Residence, Or The Character Of It, Or Anything Concerning It? If Man Is Justified In Any Belief Or Disbelief On Any Subject, He Is Warranted In The Disbelief In A Soul. Not One Scrap Of Evidence Exists To Prove Any Such Impossible Thing.

Laws Should Be Like Clothes. They Should Be Made To Fit The People They Are Meant To Serve.

I Go To A Better Tailor Than Any Of You And Pay More For My Clothes. The Only Difference Is That You Probably Don't Sleep In Yours.

One Cannot Live Through A Long Stretch Of Years Without Forming Some Philosophy Of Life.

Inside Every Lawyer Is The Wreck Of A Poet.

Eugene V. Debs Has Always Been One Of My Heroes.

Depressions May Bring People Closer To The Church But So Do Funerals.

An Agnostic Is A Doubter. The Word Is Generally Applied To Those Who Doubt The Verity Of Accepted Religious Creeds Of Faiths.

With All Their Faults, Trade-unions Have Done More For Humanity Than Any Other Organization Of Men That Ever Existed.

The Best That We Can Do Is To Be Kindly And Helpful Toward Our Friends And Fellow Passengers Who Are Clinging To The Same Speck Of Dirt While We Are Drifting Side By Side To Our Common Doom.

Probably The Undertaker Thinks Less Of Death Than Almost Any Other Man. He Is So Accustomed To It That His Mind Must Involuntarily Turn From Its Horror To A Contemplation Of How Much He Makes Out Of The Burial.

The Lowest Standards Of Ethics Of Which A Right-thinking Man Can Possibly Conceive Is Taught To The Common Soldier Whose Trade Is To Shoot His Fellow Men. In Youth He May Have Learned The Command, 'thou Shalt Not Kill,' But The Ruler Takes The Boy Just As He Enters Manhood And Teaches Him That His Highest Duty Is To Shoot A Bullet Through His Neighbor's Heart - And This, Unmoved By Passion Or Feeling Or Hatred, And Without The Least Regard To Right Or Wrong, But Simply Because His Ruler Gives The Word.

I Do Not Believe In God Because I Do Not Believe In Mother Goose.

The Man Who Fights For His Fellow-man Is A Better Man Than The One Who Fights For Himself.

It Is Indeed Strange That With All The Knowledge We Have Gained In The Past Hundred Years We Preserve And Practice The Methods Of An Ancient And Barbarous World In Our Dealing With Crime. So Long As This Is Observed And Exercised There Can Be No Change Except To Heap More Cruelties And More Wretchedness Upon Those Who Are The Victims Of Our Foolish System.

You Can Only Protect Your Liberties In This World By Protecting The Other Man's Freedom.

Chase After The Truth Like All Hell And You'll Free Yourself, Even Though You Never Touch Its Coat Tails.

Punishment As Punishment Is Not Admissible Unless The Offender Has Had The Freewill To Select His Course.

I Have Lived My Life, And I Have Fought My Battles, Not Against The Weak And The Poor - Anybody Can Do That - But Against Power, Against Injustice, Against Oppression, And I Have Asked No Odds From Them, And I Never Shall.

The Purpose Of Man Is Like The Purpose Of A Pollywog - To Wiggle Along As Far As He Can Without Dying; Or, To Hang To Life Until Death Takes Him.

If You Lose The Power To Laugh, You Lose The Power To Think.

In Order To Have Enough Freedom, It Is Necessary To Have Too Much.

Justice Has Nothing To Do With What Goes On In A Courtroom; Justice Is What Comes Out Of A Courtroom

An Idea Is A Greater Monument Than A Cathedral.

Inherit The Wind

For To Know All Is To Understand All, And This Leaves No Room For Judgment And Condemnation.

Different Strokes For Different Folks.

History Repeats Itself. That's One Of The Things Wrong With History.

Each Child Should Be More Intelligent Than His Parents.

The Fear Of God Is Not The Beginning Of Wisdom. The Fear Of God Is The Death Of Wisdom. Skepticism And Doubt Lead To Study And Investigation, And Investigation Is The Beginning Of Wisdom.

Any One Who Thinks Is An Agnostic About Something, Otherwise He Must Believe That He Is Possessed Of All Knowledge. And The Proper Place For Such A Person Is In The Madhouse Or The Home For The Feeble-minded.

The Purpose Of Life Is To Live It.

Purpose Of Life

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