A lawyer’s either a social engineer or … a parasite on society … 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.
Interpretation
Lawyers have a dual role in society: they can be either beneficial or harmful.
This quote by Charles Hamilton Houston reflects the significant responsibility of lawyers in society, highlighting that they can either work as social engineers to uplift communities by applying the law to address social issues, or they can become parasites by exploiting the legal system for personal gain. It emphasizes the importance of having lawyers who are committed to understanding and utilizing the Constitution for the greater good and improving the lives of disadvantaged individuals.
In practice
In a discussion about the role of lawyers in community service events.
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.
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.
A lawyer is either a social engineer or he is a parasite on society.
Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament.
I'm a capitalist. I believe in capitalism. But capitalism only works if you have safety nets to deal with people who are naturally left behind and brutalized by it.
Ask her what she craved, and she'd get a little frantic about things like books, the woods, music. Plants and the seasons. Also freedom. Not being bought and sold by some idiot employer, not having the moments of her days valued in fractions of a dollar by somebody other than herself.
To be black and an intellectual in America is to live in a box. On the box is a label, not of my own choosing.
How rare it is to find a soul quiet enough to hear God speak.
Nuclear weapons offer us nothing but a balance of terror, and a balance of terror is still terror.
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