The world is made up for the most part of morons and natural tyrants, sure of themselves, strong in their own opinions, never doubting anything.
Interpretation
This quote critiques the ignorance and arrogance in human nature, suggesting many people blindly hold strong opinions without questioning them.
Clarence Darrow's quote reflects on the human tendency to exhibit certainty in knowledge and belief, often leading to unchallenged and flawed perspectives. It highlights a societal issue where individuals may act tyrannically due to their unwavering self-assurance, suggesting that critical thinking and doubt are essential for personal growth and societal betterment.
In practice
In a debate about political ideologies, one might cite this quote to emphasize the importance of critical thinking.
With all their faults, trade unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in men, than any other association of men.
Do I need to argue to Your Honor that cruelty only breeds cruelty? That hatred only causes hatred; that if there is any way to soften this human heart which is hard enough at its best, if there is any way to kill evil and hatred and all that goes with it, it is not through evil and hatred and cruelty; it is through charity, and love, and understanding?
Chase after the truth like all hell.
No other offense has ever been visited with such severe penalties as seeking to help the oppressed.
Liberty is the most jealous and exacting mistress that can beguile the brain and soul of man. She will have nothing from him who will not give her all. She knows that his pretended love serves but to betray. But when once the fierce heat of her quenchless, lustrous eyes have burned into the victim's heart, he will know no other smile but hers.
The trouble with law is lawyers.
Let the historians and the Ph.D. students work out their doctrines. I'm not interested in theories per se.
When the evening was over, Anne could not be amused…nor could she help fearing, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.
I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.
About belief or lack of belief in an afterlife: Some of you may know that I am neither Christian nor Jewish nor Buddist, nor a conventionally religious person of any sort. I am a humanist, which mean, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead.
A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.
Responsibility is the price every man must pay for freedom.
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