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.
I can well conceive a man without hands, feet, head. But I cannot conceive man without thought; he would be a stone or a brute.
Both Alton Sterling and Philando Castile had guns on them, which is part of their Second Amendment right. It is a part of a culture that is largely protected by special-interest groups like the N.R.A., but the right to bear arms, it seems, only exists for white people.
Cannot the nation that has absorbed ten million foreigners into its political life without catastrophe absorb ten million Negro Americans into that same political life at less cost than their unjust and illegal exclusion will involve?
He who acts with a constant view to his own advantage will be much murmured against.
Do you not see with your own eyes the chrysalis fact assume by degrees the wings of fiction?
Without memories, without hope, they lived for the moment only. indeed, the here and now had come to mean everything to them. For there is no denying that the plague had gradually killed off in all of us the faculty not of love only but even of friendship. Naturally enough, since love asks something of the future, and nothing was left us but a series of present moments.
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