The legal system and the lawyers who operate in (and around) it have influenced society and continue to do so today. In this age of the slip-and-fall, “false” advertising, and medical “malpractice,” it’s clear that the quest for justice has not always been easy—it’s also been hilarious, poignant, enlightening, and scandalous.

Words from renowned lawyers, not-so-renowned lawyers, judges, authors, politicians, philosophers, and preachers make up this collection of over five hundred memorable, bite-sized quotations about the lives of lawyers; the law; landmark cases; and quips, jokes, and humorous sayings.

Included in this diverse compendium are quotations by and about lawyers and law:

“The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.”—U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.”—Clarence Darrow

“We do not get good laws to restrain bad people. We get good people to restrain bad laws.”—G. K. Chesterton

“A lawyer will do anything to win a case—sometimes he will even tell the truth.”—Patrick Murray