Trial Quotes
More Trial Quotes
At this moment, God is watching your life and at some point in this trial, He will say enough. You don’t need to falter.
james macdonald— p. 109 (Always True (Moody, 2011))
Grover Norquist is a mean-spirited, humorless, dishonest little creep… an embarrassing anomaly, the leering, drunken uncle everyone else wishes would stay home… [He] is repulsive, granted, but there aren't nearly enough of him to start a purge trial."
tucker carlson— Slate magazine, 17 July 1997
So, Damocles, since this life delights you, do you wish to taste it yourself and make trial of my fortune?
dionysius i of syracuse— As quoted by Cicero, in Tusculan disputations 5.61 as translated by Gavin Betts
I believe there is no philosophical high-road in science, with epistemological signposts. No, we are in a jungle and find our way by trial and error, building our road behind us as we proceed. We do not find signposts at crossroads, but our own scouts erect them, to help the rest.
Max Born— Experiment and Theory in Physics (1943), p. 44
Democracy is still upon its trial. The civic genius of our people is its only bulwark.
william james— Robert Gould Shaw: Oration upon the Unveiling of the Shaw Monument
That in controversies respecting property, and in suits between man and man, the ancient trial by jury is preferable to any other, and ought to be held sacred.
george mason— Article 11 (Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776))
Flight, or an escape from arrest for felony, is an acknowledgment of guilt . . . every man, who is accused, is bound to submit himself to the judgment of the law; and, whether it be a trespass, or whether it be a felony with which he is charged, it may, with truth, be said of him who shrinks from trial facinus fatetur qui judicium fugit.
— Day, J., Johnson's Case (1805), 29 How. St. Tr. 192.
Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. If we want the Arms Act to be repealed, if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity. If the middle classes render voluntary help to Government in the hour of its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will be withdrawn.
— Mahatma Gandhi, "An Autobiography OR The story of my experiments with truth", Chapter 27, Recruiting Campaign, from a leaflet urging Indians to serve with the British Army in World War II. [5]
A fox should not be of the jury at a goose's trial.
thomas fuller— Thomas Fuller, Proverbs (1732), p. 116.
The Patriot Act [...] makes a mockery of the Sixth Amendment, which protects your right to a speedy and public trial, and your right to the assistance of counsel for your defense.
michael badnarik— Good to be King (2004)
Those who think the information brought out at a criminal trial is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth are fools. Prosecuting or defending a case is nothing more than getting to those people who will talk for your side, who will say what you want said.
f. lee bailey— New York Times, 20 September 1970.
Democracy is on trial in the world, on a more colossal scale than ever before.
charles fletcher dole— The Spirit of Democracy (1906)
Almost all men, and those that seem to be very miserable, love life, because they cannot bear to lose sight of such a beautiful and lovely world. The ideas, that every moment whilst we live have a beauty that we take not distinct notice of, brings a pleasure that, when we come to the trial, we had rather live in much pain and misery than lose.
jonathan edwards— "The Beauty of the World" (c.1725), from the notebook The Images of Divine Things, The Shadows of Divine Things, The Language and Lessons of Nature (published 1948)
It is better that a guilty man should not be brought to trial than that he should be acquitted.
livy— Book XXXIV, sec. 4
Character is the product of daily, hourly actions, and words, and thoughts; daily forgivenesses, unselfishness, kindnesses, sympathies, charities, sacrifices for the good of others, struggles against temptation, submissiveness under trial. Oh, it is these, like the blending colors in a picture, or the blending notes of music, which constitute the man.
john rose macduff— P. 46. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
It behooves a prudent person to make trial of everything before arms.
terence— Act IV, scene 7, 19, line 789.
Judge and prosecutor had hammered it home that Lady Chatterly was an immoral woman, that she had had sexual relations before marriage, that she had committed adultery under her husband's roof; as if these charges somehow disqualified her from participation in serious literature. Indeed, there were long periods of the trial during which an outsider might well have assumed that a divorce case was being heard.
Kenneth Tynan— "Lady Chatterly's Trial (The Old Bailey, 20 October - 2 November 1960)", p. 409
I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.
winston churchill— On his appointment as Prime Minister, May 10, 1940; The Second World War, Volume I : The Gathering Storm (1948)
People sometimes tell me that they prefer barbarism to civilisation. I doubt if they have given it a long enough trial. Like the people of Alexandria, they are bored by civilisation; but all the evidence suggests that the boredom of barbarism is infinitely greater.
kenneth clark— Ch. 1: The Skin of Our Teeth
The privilege of opening the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave responsibility. The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated. That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason.
robert h. jackson— Opening Address to the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trials (November 10, 1945).
The born-yesterday French-besotted faddists, addicted sniffers of wet printer’s ink, think they’re starting on the ground floor; so they’re condemned to another hundred years of trial and error. The rest of us can safely ignore them.
camille paglia— p. 202 (Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders : Academe in the Hour of the Wolf)
I stand by my kind; and I thank God for the temptations that have brought me into sympathy with them, as I do for the "love that urges me to efforts for their good. I hail the great brotherhood of trial and temptation in the name of humanity, and give them assurance that from the Divine Man, and some, at least, of His disciples, there goes out to them a flood of sympathy that would fain sweep them up to the firm footing of the rock of safety.
— Josiah Gilbert Holland, p. 42. elbin (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
No doubt the reason is that character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
— Helen Adams Keller (p. 60. Helen Keller's Journal: 1936-1937, Doubleday, Doran & company, inc., 1938).
Socrates was the chief saint of the Stoics throughout their history ; his attitude at the time of his trial, his refusal to escape, his calmness in the face of death , and his contention that the perpetrator of injustice injures himself more than his victim, all fitted in perfectly with Stoic teaching.
— Bertrand Russell, in A History of Western Philosophy (1945), Book One, Part III, Chapter XXVIII, Stoicism, p. 253
Without resorting to authorities in a plain case, the common sense and feeling of mankind, the voice of nature, reason, and revelation, all concur in this plain rule, That no man is to be condemned unheard; and consequently no trial ought to proceed to the condemnation of a man who by the providence of God is rendered totally incapable of speaking for himself, or of instructing others to speak for him.
— Foster, J., Sir John Wedderburn's Case (1746), Foster's Cr. Ca. 34, 35.
Whatever disagreement there may be as to the scope of the phrase "due process of law" there can be no doubt that it embraces the fundamental conception of a fair trial, with opportunity to be heard.
— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Frank v. Magnum, 237 U.S. 309, 347 (1915).
Knowledge must come through action; you can have no test which is not fanciful, save by trial.
— Line 592.
So, Damocles , since this life delights you, do you wish to taste it yourself and make trial of my fortune?
— As quoted by Cicero, in Tusculan disputations 5.61 as translated by Gavin Betts
People expect Byzantine, Machiavellian logic from politicians. But the truth is simple. trial lawyers learn a good rule: 'Don't decide what you don't have to decide.' That's not evasion, it's wisdom.
mario cuomo— As quoted in The Quotable Politician (2003) by William B. Whitman, p. 25
