Darrow

This is a permanent draft version and will get updated from time to time.

Clarence Darrow is (was) 18 April 1857 – 13 March 1938, a famous agnostic, lawyer and free will skeptic.

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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 free will 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.

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.
Darrow for the Defence p 257

Punishment as punishment is not admissible unless the offender has had the free will to select his course.

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.

Chase after the truth like all hell and you’ll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails.

Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt.

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.

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man’s freedom. (Seems apposite, in terms of today’s trend by some to ‘deplatform’ people we would hold odious.)

If you lose the power to laugh, you lose the power to think.

I do not believe in God because I do not believe in Mother Goose.

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.

I have always felt that doubt was the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of God was the end of wisdom
The Story of My Life

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.

Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for.

Laws should be like clothes. They should be made to fit the people they serve.

Justice has nothing to do with what goes on in a courtroom; Justice is what comes out of a courtroom.

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.

I have suffered from being misunderstood, but I would have suffered a hell of a lot more if I had been understood.

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I’m beginning to believe it. (seems very true today).

I am a friend of the working man, and I would rather be his friend, than be one.

The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.

Working people have a lot of bad habits, but the worst of these is work.

I never wanted to see anybody die, but there are a few obituary notices I have read with pleasure.

In its more primitive stages slavery was enforced by the ownership of the man. In its later and more refined stages it is carried on by the ownership of the things from which man must live.