Alan Dershowitz Quotes, People Quotes, Justice Quotes

In our criminal justice system, we say it's better for 10 guilty people to go free than for even one innocent person to be wrongly convicted.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Dershowitz Quotes , People Quotes , Justice Quotes

Law is an imperfect profession in which success can rarely be achieved without some sacrifice of principle. Thus all practicing lawyers -- and most others in the profession -- will necessarily be imperfect, especially in the eyes of young idealists. There is no perfect justice, just as there is no absolute in ethics. But there is perfect injustice, and we know it when we see it.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Dershowitz Quotes , Inspirational Quotes , Motivational Quotes

I feel like my 50 years at Harvard were an interlude. I'm really a New Yorker.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Dershowitz Quotes , Years Quotes , Harvard Quotes

My goal is always to keep support for Israel a bi-partisan issue and never make a national election any kind of referendum on Israel.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Dershowitz Quotes , Israel Quotes , Issues Quotes

I think there would be less torture with a warrant requirement than without one.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Dershowitz Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Would Be Quotes

Good character consists of recognizing the selfishness that inheres in each of us and trying to balance it against the altruism to which we should all aspire. It is a difficult balance to strike, but no definition of goodness can be complete without it.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Dershowitz Quotes , Character Quotes , Balance Quotes

Ed Koch will never "rest in peace." That was not his way. He was always nervously squirming, while making others squirm as well. Comfort was not his goal. He understood that to be a proud and assertive Jew meant never being able to leave a sigh of relief and say "it's over, we are at peace, we can now put down our guard and relax."

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Dershowitz Quotes , Rest In Peace Quotes , Sigh Of Relief Quotes

For most people, the question why be good - as distinguished from merely law abiding - is a simple one. Because God commands it, because the Bible requires it, because good people go to Heaven and bad people go to Hell.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Dershowitz Quotes , Simple Quotes , Law Quotes

Doing something because God has said to do it does not make a person moral: it merely tells us that person is a prudential believer, akin to the person who obeys the command of an all-powerful secular king.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Dershowitz Quotes , Kings Quotes , Powerful Quotes

There are two kinds of terrorism. Rational terrorism such as Palestinian terrorism and apocalyptic terrorism like Sept. 11. You have to distinguish between the two.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Dershowitz Quotes , Two Quotes , Kind Quotes

I read in the newspaper that the Catholic Church finally decided that it had been theologically improper to try to convert the Jews. Whoops! Sorry for all those inquisitions, crusades, and autos-da-fe. Previous popes were wrong - infallible, perhaps, but wrong.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Dershowitz Quotes , Sorry Quotes , Catholic Quotes

To ask about the 'source' of rights or morals assumes an erreous conclusion. To ask about the source of morals is to assume that such a source exists. As if it existed outside of human constructed systems. The 'source' is the human ability to learn from experience and to entrench rights in our laws and in our consciousness. Our rights come from our long history of wrongs.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Dershowitz Quotes , Rights Quotes , Law Quotes

The law is agnostic about truth.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Dershowitz Quotes , Law Quotes , Agnostic Quotes

Everybody says they're opposed to torture. But everyone would do it personally if they knew it could save the life of a kidnapped child who had only two hours of oxygen left before death. And it would be the right thing to do.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Dershowitz Quotes , Children Quotes , Oxygen Quotes

I don't think the law exists to arrive at the truth. If it did, we wouldn't have exclusionary rules, we wouldn't have presumptions of innocence, we wouldn't have proof beyond reasonable doubt. There's an enormous difference between the role of truth in law and the role of truth in science. In law, truth is one among many goals.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Dershowitz Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Law Quotes

I think extremists within the base may very well move the Democratic party away from its pro-Israel position.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Dershowitz Quotes , Party Quotes , Moving Quotes

It simply cannot be disputed that for decades the Palestinian leadership was more interested in there not being a Jewish state than in there being a Palestinian state.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Dershowitz Quotes , States Quotes , Palestinian Quotes

Most liberal democracies don't try to figure out what the truth is.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Dershowitz Quotes , Democracy Quotes , Trying Quotes

The worst mistake you can make is underrating your enemy. Assuming that they're evil - I think it's a terrible thing to do.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Dershowitz Quotes , Mistake Quotes , Thinking Quotes

Twenty five percent of Israeli citizens are not even Jewish. Anybody can become an Israeli citizen if you qualify. Religion is not a criterion for citizenship.

5 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Alan Dershowitz Quotes , Twenties Quotes , Citizens Quotes