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
The race problem in the United States is the type of unpleasant problem which we would rather do without but which refuses to be buried.
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 will far rather see the race of man extinct than that we should become less than beasts by making the noblest of God's creation, woman, the object of our lust.
And if you can't shape your life the way you want, at least try as much as you can not to degrade it.
To believe that will has power over potentiality, that the passage to actuality is the result of a decision that puts an end to the ambiguity of potentiality (which is always potentiality to do and not to do) β this is the perpetual illusion of morality.
There is no need to worry about mere size. We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin man. Sir Isaac Newton was very much smaller than a hippopotamus, but we do not on that account value him less.
When you're Black in the United States, you grudgingly grow accustomed to having people deny that your existence is integral to everything that makes this country what it is.
You can't have occupation and human rights.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.