A lawyer is either a social engineer or he is a parasite on society.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that a lawyer can play a constructive role in society or be detrimental to it, depending on their choices and actions.
Charles Hamilton Houston's quote encapsulates the dual nature of a lawyer's role in society. It emphasizes that lawyers hold a significant position where they can either contribute positively as social engineers, working to enhance justice and equity, or negatively as parasites, exploiting legal systems for personal gain without regard for societal well-being. This highlights the ethical responsibilities that come with the profession and encourages lawyers to choose the path of serving the community.
In practice
This quote can be used during a legal ethics seminar to inspire young lawyers to consider their impact on society.
The hate and scorn showered on us Negro officers by our fellow Americans convinced me that there was no sense in my dying for a world ruled by them. I made up my mind that if I got through this war I would study law and use my time fighting for men who could not strike back.
A lawyerβs either a social engineer or β¦ a parasite on society β¦ A social engineer [is] a highly skilled, perceptive, sensitive lawyer who [understands] the Constitution of the United States and [knows] how to explore its uses in the solving of problems of local communities and in bettering conditions of the underprivileged citizens.
Without education, there is no hope for our people and without hope, our future is lost
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We beg you to save young America from the blight of race prejudice. Do not bind the children within the narrow circles of your own lives.
I think there is a tendency for people to get rigid and caught up in their beliefs of what is right and wrong, and they lose sight of humanity. Being human has to come first before right or wrong.
He has no right to his life when his duty calls him to resign it. Other men are bound... to deprive him of life or liberty, if that should appear in any case to be indispensably necessary to prevent a greater evil.
We've taken on health care in a big way in our office, ever since nine years ago when I was paralyzed. I was in eight different hospitals, three different rehab centers, and all the rooms were dreadful. As an architect, designer, and patient, I can do something to help.
Your true meaning cannot be grasped or captured by words. You can never be equated with any words, because you are prior to words.
Waiting and hoping are the whole of life, and as soon as a dream is realized it is destroyed.
There is a close connection between socio-political development, the struggle between social classes and the history of ideologies. In general, intellectual movements closely reflect the trends of economic developments. In communal society, where there are virtually no class divisions, man's productive activities on outlook and culture is less discernible. Account must be taken of the psychology of conflicting classes.
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