Henry David Thoreau

People die of fright and live of confidence.

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can let alone.

The wilderness is near as well as dear to every man. Even the oldest villages are indebted to the border of wild wood which surrounds them, more than to the gardens of men. There is something indescribably inspiriting and beautiful in the aspect of the forest skirting and occasionally jutting into the midst of new towns, which, like the sand-heaps of fresh fox-burrows, have sprung up in their midst. The very uprightness of the pines and maples asserts the ancient rectitude and vigor of nature. Our lives need the relief of such a background, where the pine flourishes and the jay still screams.

Things do not change; we change.

I only desire sincere relations with the worthiest of my acquaintance, that they may give me an opportunity once in a year to speak the truth.

If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.

You get a lawyer whether you’re in a military tribunal or whether you’re in a federal court, number one. The attorney general decided that the court with the biggest – with the greatest venue, with the best jurisdiction was the New York court. That was the right decision to make.

Are you threatening me? If you so much as touch me I’ll have you arrested!

The law will never make men free, it is men that have to make the law free.

My focus now is to be the best justice I can be.

Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with.

Men are not governed by justice, but by law or persuasion. When they refuse to be governed by law or persuasion, they have to be governed by force or fraud, or both.

Justice? – You get justice in the next world. In this one you have the law.

The highest law gives a thing to him who can use it.

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse torture than that of laws.

When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty.

In law, nothing is certain but the expense.

An incompetent attorney can delay a trial for months or years. A competent attorney can delay one even longer.

It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.