#it’s good that Darrow is able to understand that his army needs him more than pax does and that he can logic his way through it

[insignificant457]

Thinking about the fact that sevro is a carvers creation too.

“We went to a carver to see if we couldn’t make ourselves some magic. We did.”

Sevro, just like Darrow, is created in a lab, but their purposes are completely different. Darrow is created as a machine of war, his whole purpose after being saved by the sons of ares is to infiltrate and tear down the gold machine. He can’t separate himself from this war, because his purpose is not yet fulfilled.

Sevro, on the other hand, is created out of the love his parents have for each other. And when his mother is killed his father starts this revolution, and he does it in big part for him. It’s no coincidence that the organization fitchner starts is called the sons of ares. In sevros life, the war hasn’t just been about tearing down the society, it’s about the possibility of what comes after. The possibility is own birth represents.

I think iron gold and dark age really highlight the differences between their individual philosophies. You can see it in the fact mustang says she’d like to retire with Darrow and their children, plural, despite the fact that in ten years they’ve only got the one (who certainly wasn’t planned). Meanwhile sevro and victra have had three and another on the way in that intervening time. You can see it in the way Darrow continually struggles to pull himself away from the war, while sevro is able to compartmentalize and prioritize his family when he’s home. You can see it in the sevros palace chapter in dark age, when Darrow says sevro “didn’t close his mind to his family before battle, because he knew they did not make him weaker, they made him stronger than he was by himself.”

Darrow can’t start living life for himself until his purpose is fulfilled, while sevros purpose has always been that very life, so he finds a way to fit it in.

So in the end, it’s not surprising that when it comes down to it, Darrow chooses his army and sevro chooses his family. It’s not about one of them being right and one of them being wrong. It’s about what they were created for.

[queentala]

hii could you do a part two for the fenrys bedroom canons please <3

also could you write a enemies to lovers, fenrys x reader about them going on a mission together and finding out they are mates? :)

Hi! Of course I can write enemies to lovers because who doesn't love this trope?! And I'll probably write part two for Fen headcanons or nsfw alphabet for him in the future but at this moment I have sooo many stories already started and I need to finish them first because people are waiting so we'll see.

"Can you just fu@k off?!"

"No." 🙂

Fenrys x fem!reader

Summary: reader is Aelin's childhood best friend and helps her fight for her crown. Fenrys since the beginning of their acquaintance doesn't understand some of the reader's actions and they don't go along very well but those hateful words slowly turn into something more.

This story also has a lot of Aelin and reader’s friendship in it and probably some unnecessary scenes but I just felt like writing them but you can skip those parts.

Warnings: a lot of spoilers to EOS and KOA, a lot of time jumping, some swearing and violence

Words: a lot - I had to learn for my biology test so I decided to write 3650 words long slow-burn :)

Continuation to this fic: Wounded puppy

ENJOY KIDS <3

Since the day one you and Aelin were inseparable. The storm and the fire. You were born the same year on the court of Terrasen. She was demi - Fae princess endowed with the power of fire, you - a noble Fae with powerful water and thunder magic. Every other child in Terrasen feared both of you (expect Aedion but it’s not about him) so quickly you found common ground swearing on every star that noting will ever tear you apart. Well... Maybe expect Adarlan’s army.

Thanks to quick reaction of your parents you managed to avoid death. Unfortunately your mom and dad didn’t. You were placed under Darrow’s care as he kept you hidden from the world. As you grew older he started seeing a big potential in you and a chance to overthrow Adarlan. Every living Fae was sentenced to death and what comes with it your identify had to stay unknown. And that’s how you started your spy training.

Never you dared to think that many years later sitting on one of Rifthold’s roofs under the cover of the night and watching the glass castle you would see your queen in one of the palace windows. Using your skills you got inside within few minutes. After years of separation you stand with your best friend, sister even face to face. Smiling with tears in your eyes both of you collapsed to the floor in each others arms.

And since that day you accompanied her every minute you could. When she was sent to Wendlyn you helped Aedion with the rebels, preparing the ground for your queen for when she comes to fight for her kingdom. You helped her destroy Arobynn, you were there when she was destroying the glass castle, you accompanied her on the meeting with trusted lords of Terrasen and later in Illium. And of course as befit a good friend you sat besides her when Rolfe opened door to his office, wicked smile playing on your face.

“I like this office far better than your other one, Rolfe”

“I have a distinct memory, Caleana Sardothien, of saying that if you set foot in my territory again, your life was forfeit” Rolfe let out a snarl and his blue eyes wandered to you. “And if I remember well I promised the same thing to you, Black Mamba”

You smile got wider as you heard your name,  given by people that survived encounter with you. Name given after one of the most dangerous snakes in the world. The fastest, the most venomous, the most lethal.

“I missed you Rolfie” you said with innocent eyes. “Could an old friend not be able to visit you?”

“You never mentioned that you also got under Rolfe’s skin” Aelin looked at you with a glow in her eyes.

“It’s more like he got under mine. I just got my revenge” you shrugged.

“The friend of yours is really vindictive. I would be careful around her, Caleana” Rolfe’s face contorted with fury and spite. “Who knows when she will stab you in the back.”

Snarls from your and Aelin’s mouth came out at the same time. Your eyes wandered from Rolfe to the rest of people standing in the doorway. You found one of those incredibly handsome males staring at you with his onyx eyes narrowed, clearly vigilant, probably wondering if you are worth trust. You smirked at him, slightly reveling your fangs as you played with your dagger. Right then you knew this will be an interesting experience.

And it truly was. Fenrys didn’t trusted you and he wasn’t even hiding that. With Aelin he was friendly sarcastic, they were getting along pretty well and you had to admit you felt a little left out and forgotten but you did not let it show. While speaking with you he was cold. His arrogance and sarcasm, usually playful, towards you were... You didn’t even know how to describe it. He was disgusted? His words sometimes even hurtful, mocking.

When you were a teenager girl, you were hurt by more than one man. And when you grew older you promised to yourself that never again you’ll let a man disregard or overpower you. So you decided two can play this game.

***

“And what do you need all this mystery for, hm?" Fenrys asked, irritation written in his eyes. "How I am supposed to trust you if I don't even know your name. Am I supposed to call you Black Mamba the whole time? At least those people could think of better nickname for you, this one is lame."

You were listening to his whining since an hour as you both had a watch at the same time. Sound of waves in the sea was the only thing keeping you sane. Because of your powers you always felt safe around water, you were calm and happy. Usually... This time you barely could stop yourself from breaking this man's neck.

"I bet even if you knew my name you still wouldn't trust me" you snorted without even looking at the male sitting few meters from you.

"I don't trust snakes" his eyes fell on your left forearm where your tattoo was visible. Black snake wrapped around your wrist. Mark that made grown men tremble.

"You say you don't trust snakes yet you put so much venom into your words you could easily be one" you drawled out with so much hate in your voice that Fenrys only snorted in disbelief and stood up. "Be a good puppy and sit down. Your watch isn't over yet."

He didn't even turned to look at you as he disappeared below the deck of the ship. You rolled your eyes, annoyed to the limit. You bit your lip wondering for a second if you're gonna regret this but he would know anyways.

"Y/N" you said and even though he already walked away you knew he heard you.

You didn’t really cared about his friendship or appreciation but you had to admit his aversion towards you made you wonder if there’s something wrong with you. After all you haven’t done anything that could hurt his feelings or made him form a negative opinion about you.

“What’s wrong with him?” Aedion crouched down next to you, his blonde hair flowing in all directions because of wind, Ashryver eyes focused on the door through which Fenrys had disappeared.

“I don’t know. Dude acts as if I had killed his mother with a stick.” You looked up at your friend, for a long time he was the only person you could count on. “Is there something wrong with me?”

“Yeah, I have a list. It’s alphabetized” Aedion joked and both of you laughed. He looked into your eyes. “It’ll get better, I tell you.”

“Honestly, I don’t think so...” you breathed out and once again fixed your eyes on the horizon.

***

“I swear if I’ll hear one more word from you, my boot will be kissing your face!” you shouted not even trying to hide from others how annoyed you were with this little bitch.

You were on your way back from Stone Marshes. Everybody were exhausted, bruised and drained out of power. Additionally seeing hundreds of Melisande ships on horizon didn’t helped you. Turns out your best friend hid her plans even from you.

After unintentionally hurting Elide, Fenrys has been awfully quiet, still feeling horrible. You felt a little sorry for him but at the same time you thanked gods and hoped he’d stay like this for as long as possible. Well, gods never specially like you so...

You walked towards the deck trying to dry off your wet hair as you just finished washing yourself. Hundreds of Maeve’s ships hauled against the setting sun. The view made you sick. You fought in few battles that’s true but you were a spy, not a warrior. The very thought of the hell that was about to break loose in the morning made you feel faint.

“You sure you don’t want to take the boat and run off?” You heard Fenrys walking behind you. “War is not the right place for little girls.”

You didn’t even have the strength to answer him, you just kept walking towards Aelin and the rest with tired eyes and blank face. You just wished to know the plan for tomorrow and then go to sleep.

“Do you think Maeve would have go away if we had given her you instead of Aelin?”

You broke.

You stopped and turned so fast Fenrys didn’t even had time to react. Before he could even blink he fell on the wooden floor, groaning in pain he grabbed his nose. Red blood was dripping over his mouth and chin. The whole ship went quiet. Lorcan looked like a child that just got the best Yulemas gift, Gavriel stood shocked with his eyes wide open and Aelin just raised her brow and smirked. Fenrys looked up at you from the floor, his eyes filled with surprise and... regret. He stared at your blank face not daring to even move.

“I warned you” you said, your voice calm as ocean before storm. “I keep my promises. Do not play with me Fenrys.” Your words were harsh, making sure he will remember this moment. “Do not test my patience. You don’t want to experience the storm of my fury.” With those words you turned around and walked away, heading towards Aelin. Fenrys still haven’t moved, staring at your back. You knew something in him broke as well.

***

Just as you suspected, chaos reigned the next day. You managed to refill your magic a little bit through the night. You sank enemy ships one by one while your lightnings raged across the sky. And as the battle was drawing to a close, as hope filled you again, the events on the beach felt like being stabbed in the heart with a dagger.

You lost your best friend once again. You were on the verge of a breakdown. And when you found out Fenrys was taken as well you panicked like never before. You had no idea why but you feared for his life so much probably all Faes around you could smell it. Without excess thinking you agreed to go with Rowan, Gavriel, Elide and Lorcan to Wendlyn. Finding Aelin was a priority but you truly hoped you’ll be able to save this annoying asshole as well. All of your instincts literally begged you to find him.

Not a single day could be wasted. You were so determined that more than once your companions had troubles with keeping up with you. You spent most of the nights awake, wondering why all of sudden you care so much about him, does he truly hates you and what will happen after he will be free again. If he survives at all.

After months of searching you were able to look into those beautiful black eyes again. White wolf was lying in front of you, first time ever he looked at you without hate. His gaze was filled with sadness but as you stared at him back for a moment it was replaced with gratitude and softness. Softness that made your heart ache.

From the moment he shifted back into his Fae form your relationship had improved. You started talking normally. The two of you haven’t tried to kill one another so far and that was a big success. Few times Fenrys even gave you a faint smile what was bordering on a miracle. Everything was going perfectly until the day Aelin offered Lorcan the blood oath.

Fenrys was already angry when his former friend took it but he became even more furious when you didn’t.

“Guess I won’t change your mind?” Aelin asked as she turned to face you.

You offered her a sad smile and shook your head. “I’m sorry Aelin. I love you and I’m sure you will be great queen. I’m sure you will build the best court in the whole world” you took her hand. “But I cannot be part of it.” You discussed those issues with her before even the glass castle shattered. She understood you and for that you were thankful as never. “That doesn’t mean you will get rid of me though. Someone has to be able to kick your ass if you start messing around too much.” Aelin erupted with laugh. True laugh that made your heart grow.

Fenrys wasn’t as joyful.

You were preparing yourself to sleep when Fenrys found you.

“Why?!” he took you by the arm and turned to face him. “Why you refused to take the blood oath?” You flinched under his touch and he immediately pulled his hand back.

“It’s not your business Fenrys. It’s only between me and Aelin.”

“No it’s not!” he crossed his muscular arms. “You are best friends since you were children. You risked your life to find Aelin but you don’t want to promise your loyalty to her. I don’t understand you.” You opened your mouth to answer him but he clearly hasn’t finished. “Maybe Rolfe was right that day. Maybe you should not be trusted.”

“Watch your words unless you want your nose broken once again” you shoot him a warning look but he didn’t really cared. “You know what? Actually I thought you would understand me the best. You know how does it feel to take an unwanted oath. You tried to fought it since the moment you took it but you are angry that I don’t want to bind myself to Aelin... I am the one who don’t understand YOU, Fenrys.”

“I knew Maeve is evil since the very beginning. That’s why I didn’t wanted to serve her. But Aelin is not Maeve”

“But the blood oath is still a blood oath” you looked him in the eyes. “I couldn’t stand the thought of someone having control over my life. I can’t even imagine someone being able to control my every move regardless my will.”

“Aelin would never do that and you now it!” The male standing in front of you looked offended as if you were talking about him.

“She wouldn’t but she could if she wanted and that’s enough. I just can’t...” the last words were literally choked out. Feeling tears forming in your eyes you turned around and left. He didn’t followed you.

Next weeks were silent not only between you two but between Elide and Lorcan as well. Having nothing better to do on the ship, you started training with Lorcan as you saw a perfect opportunity to improve your *already good* skills. Fenrys of course took it personally and you were back again on unfriendly relation. And you had to admit how much you hated it. Especially when it was going so well. This strange thing that pulled you towards him didn’t helped either. You wanted to be next to him as much as possible but Fenrys avoided you all the time.

“Y/N?” Aelin’s voice pulled you out of your thoughts. You looked up at your friend. “I want you do something for me.”

“Yeah, sure” you nodded. “Whatever you need.”

***

The owner of the inn you were staying at had no idea how the war in Terrasen and the rest of Eirela was going. After weeks spent on the ship Aelin couldn’t stay still and asked you and Fenrys to gather as much information as possible.

You both decided you would go check north, Fenrys went west. After four days you were supposed to meet in a village where you split up the second day.

Your paws traded silently on the grass as you emerged among the bushes. Fenrys was already waiting for you, sitting against old fence and eating red apple. He lifted it to his mouth but stopped midway as he noticed your presence.

“I had no idea your animal form is black panther” he looked kinda surprised. Golden light glowed around you as you shifted to your normal form and sat beside him.

“And what did you thought it was?” you asked as he took out another apple from his bag and passed it to you.

“Honestly I forgot you have an animal form” Fenrys looked at you with a sad smile.

“Well, I weren’t able to use it for over ten years so sometimes I forget it too.” you bit into sweet apple, its juice dripping down your chin. “I rarely shift... Or use my magic in general.”

“I think I also forget that you’re only 20 years old. It’s weird for Fae to be so young...” he joked and you smiled.

“Probably I’m little baby in your eyes”

“No. Not really...” his voice was quieter now. “In my eyes you’re a young warrior who didn’t gave up even when the world took everything from her. You were just 8 and you already had to fight for your life. I look up to you” he smiled gently. “Connall and me depended on our parents till our thirties and you... You’re so smart and brave, incredibly sly and loyal. And I’m sorry for all those awful things I said.”

“You know, I always saw you as a really good person.” You looked into his eyes. You wanted him to know that you mean it. “You scarified your freedom for your brother and bear all those shit only for him. And I realized I never truly thanked you for being the reason Aelin survived all those tortures.” It was time to open up in front of him. Now or never. If this talk won’t work out, nothing will. “You always seemed so funny and charming and when you talked to Aelin and ignored me I felt so left over and jealous even...”

“I was jealous of Lorcan...” he admitted and you laughed

“I know. You made it quite obvious.”

“And of Aedion... And sometimes even Gavriel and Rowan. Or any man that talked to you in general” he shoot you apologetic look.

“When...” you breathed out wondering if you’re gonna regret this. “When they told me Maeve took Aelin I had no idea what to do, but when I realized she also took you... I don’t remember ever panicking so bad. It felt like each of my instincts begged me to find you.” You turned your head towards Fenrys and found him already staring at you, listening carefully to each word falling out of your mouth. “There were moments where it seemed like I could feel your pain and your fear and I started wondering...”

“If I am your mate?” You nodded. Fenrys took your hand gently in his big one. “When I first saw you in Rolfe’s office something told me to watch you. I had no idea if it was in good way or bad way but I felt like something was pulling me towards you.” His thumb was gently caressing your palm, his eyes fixed on yours entwined hands. “When you broke my nose...” he smiled at the memory “I wanted to stand up and kick your ass but since then the mere thought of hurting you made my blood boil and I just couldn’t move. As if I would want to protect you from me. That’s when I started suspecting something”

“Well if we both had suspicions why the bond hasn’t clicked yet?” you wondered leaning slightly towards the male.

“Sometimes it needs a stronger impulse.” He shifted his gaze from your hands to your face. “It might be a kiss or life-threatening situation or... sex” he smiled wickedly. “Who knows?” both of you erupted with laughter.

“So let’s provide this bond this stronger impulse...” you leaned in so your forehead was touching his.

“Do you want me to find an inn and book us a room for a night or...” the glow in his eyes let you know what he exactly meant and you punched him in his arm.

“Fenrys... I won’t go to bed with you yet.” You didn't wanted to refuse him anything but your past just didn’t let you do it now. “Someday yes, but not yet.” You pulled away slightly to look into his eyes. Eyes full of softness and adoration. “But we can start with kisses” you smiled at him gently. “And after this war you can take me on a date so we can start everything once again. And then... we'll see.”

“Take as much time as you need Y/N. I will wait” he pulled his hand up to your cheek. “But not for a kiss.”

Fenrys closed the distance left between you two and pushed his lips onto yours. He kissed softly, lovingly. The kiss that made you forget you’re in the middle of a war. That world might end soon. You didn’t cared. Not when you felt a new path create in your soul. A path that lead to his heart, his soul, to him.

Fenrys pulled off gently, both of you smiling like idiots. “There you are.”

“What will Aelin say when she’ll find out? We go on a mission not even talking to each other and come back as mates... She will never stop mocking us about that” you laughed. Fenrys only pulled you closer to his chest looking down at you. His hand still gently holding your face.

“To hell with all of them.” He kissed you once again. “And if they cross the line you can always use your boot in the face technique to shut them.”

[darrowsrising]

Come here to be a howler for a moment. The whole feminist anti Virginia thing is really pissing me off today. Please go off about our Queen. Favourite Mustang moments from both trilogies please

To be anti Virginia is feminist now? The guts some people have! Ew, if any anti who wank their ego by saying they're feminist sees this post please be good trash and take yourself out 🤮🤮🤮.

Virginia au Augustus is one of the most brilliantly written female characters of all time. Actually, I'll argue that Pierce Brown - yes, a white, straight, cis gender man - writes better female characters than some female authors that are in high demand currently. And he deserves no praise for it - every writer should be able to flesh out female characters.

Honestly, I am sick of radicalists who just want to be upset about something. Instead of playing offended, how about you go support N.K. Jemisin or other brilliant female authors, maybe you can learn a thing or two from her.

Getting back to the absolute queen, the absolute goddess that Virginia au Augustus is:

She was the only one at the Institute who understood Darrow's analogies - he accused her of caring about the victims only because they were Gold, if they were Red, she wouldn't blink. But she did blink. She was never confronted like this, though and that took her by surprise, but she is the only Gold at the Institute to admit to the wrongness of it all no matter the Color. I know the bar is low, but it is a glimpse into how Virginia actually is - in a Society that allowes Golds to be monsters led by greed.

She is the smartest person in the room, but she doesn't always win, which I love, because while she likes winning, she is not an 'at all costs' kind of person. She is an intelligent leader - House Minerva is the most organized and the most thriving House. It showed that she is a great leader, but not necessarily the best military strategist. But she was not mad at all when Darrow conquered her House. She actually tipped her hat to him so to speak.

She retreated to rethink her strategy, but what I think surprised her and made her stick around Darrow was that even though he wants to win at all costs, he wouldn't risk her and her safety. I think she saw a kindred spirit - whatever his reason are for winning, they are more than what Society wants to make of them.

Once Darrow sees her strategy, they both proceed to implementing it - she tried on her own and failed. That little hand analogy is more than the basis for the Reaper's Army - later we will see it's an analogy for the world they should build.

Virginia au Augustus has been raised in the gardens Augustus mansions on Mars by both Kavax and Niobe, but also by Nero. Darrow is right - she is an ocean - beautiful and bright and scary and mysterious as fuck. She was raised to win, to conqueror, to bring pride to the Augustus name. Her loyalties lay with her loved ones first and foremost, always did, always will. Darrow's year at the Institute was about 6 months and she humilliated her brother, betrayed him, discarded her ties to her House that have been there all her life for what she and Darrow built. Because for her, it was worth it.

Her stint in that room on Olympus - I see it now as an analogy for her life. She has been priviledged - born into the most powerful House on Mars, albeit a tad shorter than average, she is pure Gold, beautiful like you would expect from a Gold, obvioudly rich, given that daddy owns Mars, declared a genius at a young age and helped to nurture that through more than just books, experiences too. Yet she raged in that room, refused to be kept inside, tried to break her way out, even tried to jump out of the freaking floating castle. She refused to help her deranged brother, she refused to cooperate with the people Nero had under his thumb, even though she was only going to gain from them. She wants to use her privilege to make things better - now, we all know, and she comes to understand that too, that reforms are band aids on bullet wounds in the Society - but she is the only Gold up to do that.

She learns quite fast that you must break so you can rebuilt. Her statement in MS underlines once again that the peace she was trying to make with Octavia was a desperate move, an assurance plan, because she was losing and she knew what Octavia did to losers. With Darrow onsidered dead and Sevro ignoring her, she felt alone and connered.

Of course, she has her not so pretty sides. Her family doesn't deserve it at all, yet she would go to hell and back to protect them. Even use people for her own aims.

She always paced herself, always refused to give in to the sort of fear-inducing anger that Sevro and Darrow are famous for. But she is still very much a force to be reckoned with - she just has her way of doing things - like the Iron Circle - the biggest balls in the Solar System belong to Virginia the Lionheart.

The reason she paced herself is to make demokracy work - and demokracy needs validity - no matter jow hard things get she has been a constant, she walked that stiletto at all times and never faltered.

She loves so very much, it breaks her when she has to choose between her loved ones and her duty. By the way, the fact that she is not family, duty, honour (in that order) is AMAZING.

Her friendships in the series are great - from House Telemanus to Theodora, Holiday and Sevro.

The way she and Darrow love each other - even when they do not see eye to eye, they respect each other, protect each other, look out for each other. Pierce Brown has managed to make the most amazing love story - no possessive bullshit, no cringey sex scenes, just beautiful and intense love. They have passion and affection without being gross, they can do their work without getting distracted by the other, they are supportive of each other.

Let's talk the Iron Circle scene - she was devastated for failing to save her loved ones. Yet the fires in the shape of a slingBlade and the people's loud love for her - Virginia the Lionheart, Sovereign of the Solar Republic, Sovereign of Mars - she never felt that. She always led with her mind, she always did what was right, she never felt the heart of the people and always second guessed herself because of that. But they do love her, and she felt it. And she started to hear the people's heartbeat too. And that was amazing.

Virginia hates being vulnerable, yet she showed vulnerability to her loved ones. And her heart to heart with Victra? PERFECTION.

About her being trampled and stripped by the mob (she wasn't stripped naked, under her pants and tunic, she always wears underwear, duh), I understand a lot of butthurt haters wanked this as reason to hate Dark Age. Well, sorry, but not only it was meant to a punishment from Adrius for her betrayal in RR, but it wasn't treated differently from how Darrow was assaulted (omce in GS when he was bathing naked, once in DA when Atlas ordered death by gangr*pe). The writer isn't there to make you confortable, they are there to tell a story - you get butthurt easily, don't read Adult Sci-Fi

Virginia is amazing, I want to be her when I grow up 😍😭💖. This list is not exhaustive in the least, she is that amazing.

Howl on!

[itsspookyolive]

Kingdom of Ash Chapters 51-55

THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR KINGDOM OF ASH

Kingdom of Ash is the Never Ending Pasta at Olive Garden of books: the words just keep coming but they aren’t very good and they’ll give you a tummy ache.

Chapter 51 Elide and Lorcan talk and she tells him that she can’t understand why he ever loved Maeve and that she wants to because she needs to understand how she could have fallen in love with a monster, i.e. Lorcan. He apologizes and she tells him that she doesn’t care if he walks off the battle field. Gavriel tells her that she might as well “have kicked a male already down” and that he has never in 500 years heard Lorcan apologize for to anyone not even Maeve. Nesryn and Sartaq talk and he tells her he wants to fuck her even though they have to fight a battle in the morning. because “war does strange things to people”.

Chapter 52 Manon comes back to the Crochans and tells them she doesn’t know if the Ironteeth with fight with them but Asterin believes they will. Dorian practices shifting.

Chapter 53 Lysandra wakes up in a tent and Aedion is there. He tells her everyone saw her shift back into herself so the whole army knows that she has been pretending to be Aelin the entire time. He tries to apologize for his behavior and she tells him off and lets him know that him throwing her naked into the snow was the most degraded and humiliated she’s ever been in her life. Darrow shows up as the army is retreating to Orynth and strips Aedion of his title as general and takes the Sword of Orynth from him. Even though a guy named Kyllian is the new general everyone still acts like Aedion is. They are two days away from Orynth when they receive word that Morath’s army has flanked them and cut them off from being able to cross into the city by bridge.

Chapter 54 Chaol and Yrene talk and he tells her he knows she is pregnant. Aelin and Chaol’s father talk. Rowan, Gavriel, Aelin, Fenrys, and Elide are talking about how all the men are afraid and they can smell it and they don’t know what to do to help stop it. Elide asks who will be queen when they kill Maeve and Rowan says it would be Aelin because she has the most direct line to Mab and they trace royalty through maternal lines. Then Gavriel says Rowan’s cousin Sellen would have half the claim and Aelin says she can have it, They then joke about how Aelin would be The Faerie Queen of the West and how its another title. Aelin has a bad dream.

Chapter 55 Dorian changes into a woman and thinks about how weird it feels and how he has to make adjustments because having boobs is hard because they are kind of in the way. And he also thinks about how if he had time he’d masturbate???? Him and Manon fight again while he’s a girl. All the Crochan are getting ready to leave when the Matrons of the Ironteeth clans show up with their wyverns.

Stray Observations

-This war is making everyone so horny!

-This book just gets weirder and more confusing!

-I get that Elide is mad at Lorcan and I absolutely don’t want to see them together but Elide from QoS is smart and compassionate and I really can’t see her being this cruel on purpose. Elide deserves a much better story line than what she has been given. 

My asks are open if you have any questions!

[rayonfrozenwings]

6 + 26 for the KoA ask :D

Thank you sweet dear Leslie! Who is asleep right now so I hope you see my rambling upon waking. 

6) What alliances do you think are possible, moving forward?MY PREDICTIONS - just saying, you don’t need to agree with me. 

So I have a few, it depends how I think the battle is going to go down and I have a couple of ideas for that. But I will attempt to narrow it down to my most likely scenario.

Good guys - aka Aelin’s Team

Lysandra and Aedion will go up the coast to Ardarlan, possibly talk to any remaining rebels there or courtesans etc. Then with these people on side, head to Terrasen and meet up with the Bane and the Rebels in the North, aka, Ren Allsbrook and his Dad as well as Nox Owen who is chilling with them. Evangaline will have worked some magic on Darrow and charmed them all without them realising it or found that special flower that will make darrow change his mind. Rolfe’s fleet will partol the seas between ilium and ardarlan with Galan and the whitethorn armada.Meanwhile Dorian, Manon and the thirteen are going to head to Fenharrow. I feel like fenharrow is linked with the crochran witches, “fens” often have a witch in them as other stories i’ve read - so why not this one. Its also where Yrene and Sorscha are from originally. Coincidence? I don’t think so. 

Ansel and Elias are going to head through Melisande again. and probably head up through the wastes to come up on Morath’s west side. I do not think the final battle will take place at Morath. It was a place of containment for Erawan, based on where their last battle with gavin and elena was, so I think the big battle will be near the ferrian gap and Anneille in the centre of Erilea. anyway, Ansel and Elias are going to have to learn to get along and head up the back side of the mountain range and prevent anyone escaping. 

We have the southern army made up of ruk riders, horsemen, and the fleet coming too with some heros like Nesryn, Sartaq, Kashin, Hasan, Chaol, Yrene. 

Side note on fleets - Because we have three fleets we must be having some sort of naval battle at some point. either in defense of Ardarlan or somewhere in the gulf of Oro. We know that the King of Xandria is a little scary from The assassins blade - while we simultaneously know absolutely nothing about him except he likes his horses - a possible enemy like vernon, a thorn in our heroes side.  

There are some dunes down there called the Black dunes so maybe there is something dark happening over there. I’ve thought for a long time that Maeve is linked to the goddess of dreams Lani so it wouldn’t surprise me if she is hanging out with the cult down there as if she is their goddess returned. and Aelin chilling in some dank cells. (there is sweet smelling smoke entering her iron coffin in TOD, so this isnt completely unrealistic a stretch.) this also Means that that whole part of the map becomes important for the Aelin’s story line while everyone else is focused on Erawan in the mountains. Rowan would have a hard time down there since its a desert and his powers are wind and ice. cue - great tension and pain on behalf of the reader.

ok back to alliances, we have some people still in Ellywe because they got grumpy at the fires, so we know they haven’t been completely decimated. Melisande had a lovely old coup so more troops from there on Aelins side that weren't on her side before. Plus the smaller provinces that have been pushed down by the dominating power of the king of Ardarlan over the last 15-20 years. With him now dead and the city destroyed by the witches, these people might be able to claim back their own independence. Maybe even working with the larger powers (terrasen/ etc) to secure their independence later through good faith and stuff. 

I feel like the whole continent is going to have to choose a side, sitting on the fence isn’t an option.  Now the bad guys. They are going to have alliances too. 

Erawan

I think Erawan will be left with the blackbeak matron and the yellowlegs matron and the yellow legs army. i feel like the blackbeaks have the possibility of choosing a new leader in Manon and turning on the Matron. Which I would live for!!!! but Manon need to be an equal force to the matron for that to happen - like gaining an army of crochran witches first. they wont defect to someone weaker. 

Blueblood witches have a strong link to prophecy and are smart enough to choose the winning side. So Petra and her mother will side with Manon when the time is right - it might be the night before the final battle though.

Erawan will have his corrupted creatures, and we know he has an army of men too, as Manon met them in Morath while she had her armor made etc. I think of Saurman with his army of Urak Hai when I think of this army of Erawans, hopefully he gets his ass handed to him like Sarumon did (crap sorry if my spelling is off). 

Erawan will also have the mountain men of the white fang mountains. 

Erawan will also have Chaol’s dad (sorry Chaol your going to have a hard time). and perhaps Georgina and Hollin as hostages, well looked after but still to be used when the time is convenient to hurt Dorian.

Erawan lost his allies in Melisande thanks to Ansel.

Maeve

her enslaved and compliant evil people, like Cairn and Fenrys. 

the cult people - the priestess of lani

and the king of Xandria. 

stygian spiders. those creepy bitches with that shifty leader who stole those shape shifting powers from Falken .

I’ve probably left people out. but this is just out of my head. I made a post yesterday called “Attack formations” but i think i’ve been more clear in this prediction. :D :D :D :D 

sorry team - incase you don’t know, i’m a little obsessed with these books. 

26) Do you think Elena is an Actual Idiot, or do you understand her POV?

Um both. 

because she doesn't know A N Y T H I N G but at the same time knows E V E R Y T H I N G. which is actually the wrong information. 

but also she has tried her hardest with what she has and she has been manipulated too. Even Brannon didn't know everything when Aelin talked to him. They are only mortal (ghosts but still led mortal lives) and are limited by their experience and knowledge - they are not omnipresent gods. How therefore can they know more than they have been told?so I guess I understand her but also shes doing her best its just that her best sucks. 

Koa Ask Meme QuestionsSend me an ask! :D

[fuzzballsheltiepants]

The Forging of the Wolf, Chapter 15

Very briefly/mildly NSFW.  Read the earlier chapters:  Chapter 1.  Chapter 2.  Chapter 3.  Chapter 4.  Chapter 5.  Chapter 6.  Chapter 7.  Chapter 8.  Chapter 9.  Chapter 10.  Chapter 11.  Chapter 12.  Chapter 13.  Chapter 14. 

Aedion strode through the streets of Orynth, seething.  Ten days, he’d been here.  Ten days, and not a gods-damned thing had been accomplished.  For some reason, he had expected the rebels to be organized, or at least vaguely on the same page, but their infighting was going to destroy them.  

He had made some headway with Darrow, whom he thought had been pleased to see him when Aedion had appeared at his door unannounced the morning after his arrival in Orynth.  Darrow had never had the warm, open manner of King Orlon, but at least when the King had been alive he had been pleasant and reasonably kind, if reserved.  In the months after the assassinations, he had been trying so desperately to keep the country from falling that his hidden strength and passion had been forced to the forefront.  But now, he was a shadow of his former self - cold, withdrawn, looking only to survive.  Continuing on only out of love for a memory.

Aedion had thought he was making some headway with him.  They had met several times at Darrow’s house, Aedion slowly laying out more and more of his plan.  It all hinged on him gaining control over what remained of Terrasen’s army; it would be far easier to keep Adarlan in her own borders if he followed orders and rallied the Bane. Yet this was what Darrow had argued against most strenuously.

“They’re scattered all over the country, boy,” he had said dismissively in their last meeting two days prior.  “It will take months, and some of them will never agree to serve someone in that uniform, no matter who they’re related to.”

“I understand that,” Aedion had said patiently, “but the King knows that a large portion of them survived.  They will be hunted down and slaughtered -”

“They already have been,” Darrow had snapped.  “And the rest will see you coming for them as another attempt on their lives!  They will kill you, boy, before you can even explain yourself.”  Fear.  There was fear in those cold eyes, not for the members of the Bane but for Aedion himself.  

“I told you last week, sir, that I’m either coming out of Terrasen at the head of the Bane, or I’m not making it out alive.  I meant that.  The King will kill me if your men don’t.  With your support, sir, I’m certain they will at least listen to me.  At that point it’s up to them.”  He had shrugged, resigned to his fate at the hands of strangers.  “If I can’t convince them, I don’t deserve to lead them.”

That was when Darrow had agreed to introduce him to the surviving members of the Bane who were still living in Orynth, which had led to the meeting he had just left.  Bastards.  Rutting cowards.  They had looked at him, listened to him, seemed to believe him - and then told him pityingly that he was a fool.

“You’re only going to bring Adarlan down on us again,” auburn-haired Captain Seoras had said condescendingly.  “We’re just starting to rebuild.  Give it time, we’ll survive.”

“And is that why I just walked past three fresh bodies hanging?” Aedion had snarled in response.  “They’re still butchering our citizens, still sending them to Endovier to die for petty crimes.  If we can gain control-”

“But you can’t, Prince,” interrupted Major Ualam.  “You can’t get control of Adarlan’s forces, even if you somehow manage to rally ours.  We can’t have you sacrificing more Terrasen lives for a fool’s hope.”

A fool’s hope.  Those words were echoing in his brain as he prowled.  Aedion heard the unmistakable sound of a knife being drawn and turned down a seedy-looking alley where a couple of men were arguing.  They took one look at his hooded figure, sheathed their knives, and melted into the shadows.  Damn.  He could’ve used a good fight.  Sparring with the men charged with the so-called protection of the city wasn’t taking the edge off in the slightest.  It was taking all of his self-control not to gut the bastards, especially once he realized how active the butchering blocks still were.  

At least Clery was behind him.  He had met with him twice more, alone, and had finally discussed possible strategies.  It was Clery who had suggested he have someone go with him who would be trusted enough to give the scattered warriors pause.  Raedan, Dorsey, Osment, and Hirons would have to remain here.  There was too much risk in taking them, even though he was certain they would not betray him.  Raedan wasn’t going to like it.  And Aedion had no idea who he could convince to go with him.  Obviously Ualam and Seoras and the other men from tonight were out, and he was pretty certain Cathal would scoff as well.  After all, he hadn’t even bothered to show up for this meeting, though Darrow had invited all the remaining officers in Orynth.  That there were so few left in the city that they could fit in Darrow’s parlor was something Aedion didn’t even want to think about.

He needed to get out of his head.  He hadn’t slept for more than a couple of hours for the past four nights, getting up and roaming the silent streets when he couldn’t remain still in his bed.  The more he moved, the more restless he got.  Likely he wouldn’t sleep at all tonight, at the rate he was going.  Abruptly he turned and headed back to the inn.  Maybe if he drank enough.  Or maybe, if that kitchen maid was still looking at him the way she had last night…

Raedan and Dorsey were sitting in the inn’s tavern, each with an arm around a woman.  It looked like Raedan was actually with the same one he’d had the night before, a first as far as Aedion knew.  He nodded at them and went to the bar, settling into the seat closest to the taps.  

An hour and who knew how much ale later, the kitchen maid whose name might have been Dolidh was leading him towards the stairs.  He vaguely hoped they were going to his room so he wouldn’t have to move too far afterwards, though at least for now the floor was still steady.  Dorsey had disappeared, and Raedan was deeply involved with the woman who was now seated quite happily on his lap.  He caught a vaguely familiar scent as they went past the door, but Dolidh ran a hand up his arm and he forgot everything but his need for release as they headed upstairs.

*****

Cathal looked up as a hand tapped on the bar to see Clery seating himself, looking irritated.  The former lord had gotten him this job once he had finally been able to get out of bed after Terrasen had fallen.  He had toyed many times with joining some of his fellows north of the Staghorns, but he still felt that he owed Clery, so he had stayed.  Even though there were parts of the city he still couldn’t bear to walk through, he had stayed.  

“What?” he asked, concerned, as he poured the brandy Clery ordered on the rare occasions he appeared here.  

“Why in Hellas’ name were you not at that meeting?”

“What meeting?” Cathal asked, baffled.  

“Darrow’s.  With Ashryver.  You told me you were willing to listen to his plan, but you can’t even bother to go to the damn meeting?”

“Clery, I don’t know what the hell you’re even talking about.  Darrow had a meeting?”

Now Clery was looking more concerned than annoyed.  “You didn’t know about it?”  Cathal shook his head, still feeling out of his depth.  “Then why…” Clery stopped abruptly, grinding his teeth.  “Those bastards.”

Cathal looked down the bar.  It was empty aside from Baltair at the end, who was so deep in his cups a horse could’ve come in, sat next to him, and ordered a whisky and the old man would’ve just nodded hello to it and kept humming to himself.  Still, he kept his voice low.  “Will you tell me what is going on?”

Clery sighed, taking another sip of his brandy.  “You know Ashryver’s been meeting with Darrow.”  Cathal nodded.  “Well, he finally got through to him, enough that Darrow sent an invitation to all the remaining officers in Orynth.”

“All nine of us?” Cathal said drily.

“Evidently only eight of you.  The others met with him a couple of hours ago, and Seoras and Ualam did what Seoras and Ualam do.”

“Shit.”  Those cowardly pricks, too busy profiting off the invasion have any interest in actually taking the country back.  It pissed him off that they were still treated as officers, that Ualam actually outranked him.

“Right.  Of course the others didn’t dare push back once Ualam laid it down that Ashryver was a fool for even trying to rally the Bane.”

Cathal blew a breath out threw his nose.  “No doubt that’s why Darrow didn’t invite me.”

Clery tapped his glass thoughtfully.  “I think he did intend to, actually, but he was relying on the others to spread the word.”

“So Seoras or Ualam didn’t want me there.”  Clery nodded.  Cathal glanced at Baltair, then looked back at Clery.  “Where’s Ashryver now?”

“Who knows?  Maybe back at the Whispering Antlers?  That’s where they’ve been staying.”

Cathal grinned.  “Well, isn’t that convenient for us?”  Clery gave a bit of a smile. 

Twenty minutes later he had kicked Baltair out and was heading through the city, cursing Seoras and Ualam soundly under his breath.  It wasn’t that he didn’t understand whatever reservations they had had; any attempt to push Adarlan out of Terrasen seemed fraught with risk.  Most likely he’d just get them all killed.  Didn’t mean Cathal didn’t want to judge for himself.  Especially as he remembered Clery’s words to him from a few days earlier:  “Aedion lost everything, too, Cathal.  Don’t forget that.  He’s in the same position you and I are.”  Much as he didn’t want to admit it, he knew it was true.

He entered the inn’s tavern just as a huge man with bright hair was disappearing through an interior door.  Weaving through the mostly-full tables, he headed after him when he heard his name called out.   Turning, he saw Ashryver’s young friend, Raedan, sitting at a table with a familiar pretty girl in his lap.  He picked his way over to him, studiously not looking at Kenna, who was playing with Raedan’s hair.  One of Clery’s employees, though he doubted the soldier knew it.

“Ashryver up in his room?” Cathal asked without preamble.

“Yeah, but I’d leave him be for a bit,” Raedan said.  

“I need to talk to him.”

“Just…trust me.  He’s in a foul mood, let him work some of that off.”  Kenna laughed, and Raedan kissed her shoulder before turning back to Cathal.  “Have a drink or something, he’ll probably be back down in a bit.”

Cathal turned and sat at the bar, barely touching the ale that appeared without him ordering it, glancing at the door to the stairs.  After what seemed like an eternity with no sign of the prince, he asked the bartender - another of Clery’s - what room Ashryver was staying in.  Ignoring Raedan, who was still watching him from that damn table, he headed up to the third floor.

Finding the room he pounded his fist once on the door then, not waiting for an invitation, tried the handle, which to his surprise gave immediately.  Half falling into the room, he pulled up abruptly at the sight of Ashryver’s pale ass moving as he thrust into some girl, the only visible parts of her being the fair legs and arms wrapped around him.  Judging by the sounds she was making, he was interrupting at a particularly inopportune moment, though he doubted she noticed as her moans turned into guttural cries.  Ashryver did, those bizarre eyes flicking to him before turning back to the girl underneath him, never even faltering in his movements.  Cathal backed out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him, then turning to lean back against the wall, listening to the girl climax.

Come to think of it, he should’ve picked up on the noise before he ever opened the door.  Gods-damned Ashryver.  Stupid prick, not even locking the door.  He banged his head once against the wall, then headed back downstairs.  Raedan and Kenna met him on the landing.  

“I told you,” Raedan said, his eyes dancing.

“You said he was in a bad mood,” Cathal snarled.  “You didn’t tell me he was fucking somebody.”

Kenna tried to stifle her laugh as Raedan led her past Cathal, but her hazel eyes were sympathetic when they met his.  He was surprised she was going to bed with Raedan.  That was decidedly not one of her jobs for Clery, who didn’t believe in whoring.  She must actually like the boy.  Damn them all to hell.  He was stuck relying on teenage boys still ruled by their cocks to save his country. Terrasen was doomed.

His ale was where he had left it, and he sniffed it briefly before downing half of it in one gulp.  He drained it in two more swallows, and the bartender passed him another.  He wondered how much he would have to drink to get that image, those sounds, out of his head.  

It had been two years, six months, and twenty four days since he had been with somebody.  Two years, six months, and twenty three days since Luthais had fallen during the first hour of that final battle.  In that time Cathal had remained faithful to both the lovers he lost to Adarlan, had not even touched someone with tenderness.

Somehow the sight of Ashryver mounting that girl brought everything he had buried for so long to the surface.  Muire’s screams as she was dragged to the butchering blocks echoed again in his ears.  He had never forgiven the handful of his men who knocked him unconscious to keep him from getting himself killed trying to rescue her.  Then not six months later he had dashed among the corpses on that battlefield, turning over body after body until he found Luthais, throat gaping open like a second mouth.  He didn’t remember much for weeks after that, still didn’t know how he’d made it off that battlefield and back to Orynth.

He had at least seen Muire buried.  He still didn’t know where Luthais had been lain.  If his body had been burned by the invaders, or if he was in some mass grave with all the others who had fallen that day.

The glass before him was empty without him realizing he had even taken a sip.  Ever since that night at Clery’s Luthais had been intruding on his thoughts again.  He’d managed to go months without thinking of either of them, as long as he stayed in the safe parts of the city.  Then Raedan had asked him that damn question.  Shit.  It all came back to Ashryver, that two-faced rutting bastard.

There was the scrape of a stool, and the bastard himself settled next to him.  Ashryver’s face was still flushed, and he smelled like sex and sweat and stale ale.  “What brings you here?” he rumbled, sounding exhausted.  

Cathal examined him more closely, noting the dark, almost bruised look under his eyes.  “You look like shit.”

“Seems like you went quite a bit out of your way just to tell me something I already know.”  He rubbed a broad hand through his hair and yawned widely.

“Go up and get some sleep.  We can talk tomorrow.”  Cathal didn’t know why he was feeling so charitable.

“Can’t sleep, might as well talk now.”  

Cathal looked around him.  The tavern had largely emptied out, and he recognized almost everybody who was left.  “What happened at the meeting?”

“Your cohorts made it clear that they think my assignment is doomed.  Like I didn’t know the odds were against me as it was.”  He gave a bleak laugh.  “Not a damn one of you is willing to help me, are you.  I just need an in.  That’s it.  Just someone the other soldiers will recognize so they’ll give me a chance.  But you’d all rather sit here and piss on my corpse.”

“Don’t lump me in with those pricks,” Cathal snapped.  The next four words fell out of his mouth, and then he couldn’t take them back.  “I’ll go with you.”

Ashryver looked at him, eyebrows up almost to his hairline.  “You?  You couldn’t even be bothered to come to the meeting, but you’ll travel all over the country with me?”  He signaled to the bartender.  “You wanted to walk out when you met me just last week.  Why the change of heart?”

It was a good question, and he didn’t want to say that it was Raedan’s unflinching dedication that had swayed him.  “Maybe I just want to watch you fail with my own two eyes.”

Ashryver’s lips twitched as he glanced at him sideways.  “Maybe that’s not all you want to watch.”

Cathal felt the heat rise in his face.  “Not my fault you’re too rutting stupid to lock your door.”

Ashrvyer laughed.  Picking up the glass that had just arrived, he held it up.  “To rutting stupidity and almost certain failure.”

With a wry shrug, Cathal clinked his glass against the proffered one, the noise surprisingly loud in the mostly empty room.  “Nothing like an optimistic start to all this.”

*****

The bell on the bakery door jangled and Delaney looked up from where she was restocking the cookies, alone in the store front for the first time all day.  The previous half hour had been a whirlwind of customers and the case was nearly empty.  It was the tall, gray-eyed girl from a couple of weeks ago.  Cherise.  Her face lit up when she saw Delaney.

“So this is where you work!” Cherise exclaimed, a broad smile spreading.  “I haven’t been in here in ages, do you still have those puffy things filled with chocolate?”

“Not today, but we do make something like that.”  

“Let me guess, you bake too, right?”  Delaney nodded.  “I figured.  You’re probably great.  You seem like one of those people who’s just good at everything.”

Delaney snorted.  “You decided this after talking to me for five minutes?”

“I decided it the moment you asked Brigitte if she’d fuck somebody without a head.”  Naise had chosen that unfortunate moment to walk in with a load of rolls and she stopped abruptly, looking from Cherise to Delaney with a horrified expression.  

“It’s not what it sound like,” Delaney said, hurrying over to take the rolls from her.  

“I don’t even know what it sounds like,” Naise said, “but if Luk catches you using that type of language in here -”

“She didn’t,” Cherise said, “I did.  I swear, she has been nothing but the image of civility.”  Naise escaped into the back, looking over her shoulder warningly as she went, and Cherise burst into laughter as soon as the door swung closed behind her.

“You’re going to get me into trouble,” Delaney hissed, but any heat she meant to put into it dissolved as she fought an unholy desire to join in laughing.  

“Now that I’ve found you,” Cherise said, as if the preceding thirty seconds hadn’t happened, “we’ll need to become very good friends.”  Delaney made a noncommittal noise as the door swung open and two soldiers entered.  Cherise departed empty-handed, ignoring the male eyes that followed her, and Delaney turned back to her work.

Every day after that Cherise came into the bakery, usually after the midday rush.  If they had the chocolate-filled pastries she would buy one and nibble at it while talking with Delaney until other customers arrived.  Delaney still didn’t really know what to make of her, but as the days rolled into weeks she found herself looking forward to her visits almost as much as Lady Massie’s.

The latter appeared one afternoon, and she and Cherise greeted each other warmly.  Delaney sighed internally, fighting down the surge of envy that her new acquaintance was friends with the Lady.  Delaney handed over her packet of cookies, holding those beautiful brown eyes with her usual shy smile.  She didn’t notice the flicker of hurt that passed over Cherise’s face as she watched them looking at each other.  

“I could introduce you two,” Cherise said after Lady Massie had left.  Delaney felt her cheeks flush and she glanced at her friend, ready to dismiss the notion.  But that vibrant mobile face was without its usual light, the gray eyes downcast, mouth tight.  Before she could say anything, a cluster of women came in, and Cherise slipped out in the bustle.  

Days passed, and Cherise didn’t come back.  Delaney found herself looking up eagerly every time the bell jangled.  And even when Lady Massie’s beautiful voice greeted her by name, she found herself longing for the laughter of her friend instead.

*****

Mikkal looked at Chetak’s stirrup.  It looked impossibly far off the ground.  He glanced at the man at Chetak’s head, then sighed, placed his hand on Chetak’s mane and lifted his left foot.  About halfway to its destination, his leg froze as pain ricocheted through his body.  He set his foot back down and rested his forehead against the saddle, muttering a long string of curses against the leather.  

It was imperative that he figure out how to get on a gods-damned horse, or he would never be able to leave.

“I can give you a leg up, sir,” said the patient man who had been holding the horse for the past several attempts.  Mikkal shook his head, then dropped the stirrup a few inches, studied it, then dropped it a few inches more.  When he left, there wouldn’t be anybody to help him.  Once the stirrup was low enough, he hooked his right wrist under his left knee, and was able with only a moderate level of discomfort to raise his foot to the lowered stirrup.  Pressing his toe down firmly, he reached up, pinched the back of the saddle with his right thumb and finger and bounced twice on his right foot, gritting his teeth against the spasm of pain in his gut.  Pushing off, he dragged himself up so his body rested across the saddle, breathing as deeply as he could before swinging his right leg over, biting down on his growl as the motion pulled on his muscles.  His boot brushed the horse’s rump and Chetak started, but the man held him fast.  Finally, finally, he was on.

It took another minute to fix his stirrup, and then he set off at a walk.  Chetak ambled around the camp, steady as an old plow horse.  The muscles in his lower back and hips, which he hadn’t even realized were tight, began to loosen up with the motion of the horse, and he started to relax.  After a lifetime spent on horseback, he realized how much he had taken it for granted.  How much he really loved being up so high, on a creature who was his partner and his friend.

Loved it, that is, until it was time to get off.  Then the ground looked impossibly far.  Leaning forward over Chetak’s glossy neck, he slid his foot carefully around behind him, then dropped down.  The jolt as he hit the ground shot through him and his legs gave out.  He let himself fall, knowing the landing would hurt less than trying to stop it.  

“Are you all right, sir?”  Three stablehands had rushed over to him when his ass hit the ground, but he was grinning despite the burning in his eyes.

This was it.  In another week or two, once he got his dismissal, he and Chetak would be on the road again, and this time he would be leaving the battlefield behind him for good.

*****

Weeks passed while Aedion waited for the passes through the Staghorns to clear enough to traverse.  The last thing they needed was to get stuck in the middle of nowhere in snow, which could easily drift up over even Avenar’s head.  In the meantime, he memorized maps and sparred with the small Adarlanian company that was holding the city and schemed when he could with Clery and Darrow.  

One evening Cathal appeared in the tavern at the Whispering Antlers while Aedion was eating with his men.  He looked a bit askance at Dorsey, Osment, and Hirons, but dropped into a chair at Aedion’s gesture.  “The runner got through,” he said.  “We should leave as soon as possible.”

The men exchanged glances.  They knew that Cathal was going as Aedion’s guide, though only Raedan was aware of his true status as an officer of the Bane.  None of them were happy about being left behind.  Hirons had argued the most strenuously, not trusting Cathal’s motives, but had given in when Aedion had tasked him with keeping the garrison under control in his absence, which was expected to last months.  

Aedion nodded.  “I can be ready in the morning.”  Raedan started to say something, but subsided.  Aedion asked, “What time do you want to leave?”

“If we leave within an hour after sunrise, we should make it to a good camping spot before nightfall.”  His eyes were roving around the room, leg bouncing up and down, fingers tapping on the table.

“Sounds good.”  Aedion cleaned his plate, watching Cathal twitch.  “Do you want something to eat?”

“No.”

Dorsey and Hirons silently passed Aedion their plates, and he finished what they didn’t want.  Aedion tilted his head at his men, and all but Raedan left.  “What’s bothering you?”

“Nothing.”  Aedion just waited.  Several minutes passed, then Cathal stood abruptly.  “I’ll see you in the morning.”  He strode out of the tavern.

Aedion and Raedan exchanged looks.  “Do you trust him?”  Raedan asked.  

“No,” Aedion replied, “but Clery does.”

Raedan’s sniff indicated what he thought of that.  “And you really won’t let me come with you.”

Aedion shook his head.  “No.  It’s bad enough having one man in Adarlanian uniform riding down on these people, having more will invite catastrophe.  Even if you go disguised, you can’t hide your accent.”  Raedan slumped in his seat, arms crossed.  “Besides,” Aedion added slyly, “if you came with me you’d be away from Kenna for who knows how long.”

Raedan’s neck turned red.  “I’d still rather come.”

“I know.”  The truth was, he felt a bit as if he was diving blind into dark waters when he thought of leaving Raedan behind.  “But I need you here.  Keep working with Clery, he still hasn’t moved to get the rebels to stand down in the city.  We need to get the garrison thinking that they’ve succeeded.”

“You’ve told me this a thousand times,” Raedan said with some asperity.  

The weight of the task before him pressed on Aedion’s shoulders.  Despite all the planning he’d been doing not just for a few weeks but for the past year, everything hung on the whims of other people.  He honestly couldn’t even be sure Cathal wouldn’t just slit his throat in his sleep once they were up in the Staghorns, though the soldier seemed too straightforward for that to be likely.  

“Shit,” he said under his breath, letting his head fall back so he was looking at the intricately paneled ceiling.  It was so odd, he thought, studying the perfect symmetry of the inlaid honey-colored squares overhead.  Someone, a hundred years ago when building this inn, decided to put so much time adding beauty into something few people would likely ever see.  

Sitting up straight again, he looked around the crowded tavern.  It was packed with people who managed to be together yet separate; eyeing each other with interest, or longing, or even despair.  So many scents and emotions crashed down on him, he had to get out.  “See you in the morning, brother,” he said to Raedan.  

“‘Night,” Raedan replied, his face lighting up as Kenna began making her way over to him, dodging preoccupied bodies, her own face glowing as her eyes met his.  Aedion’s lips twitched up even as an ache began in his chest, and he turned and escaped into the open air.

It was just beginning to rain, a drizzle so fine it looks like the drops were hanging in the air rather than falling.  Flipping his hood back, he tilted his face up to it.  His hair and skin dampened, though he couldn’t feel the water hitting him.  He started walking, not going anywhere in particular, just letting his feet carry him where they would.  

The castle appeared in front of him, stark against its backdrop of craggy mountain, the white walls seeming to glow faintly despite the dark and the increasing rain.  He stopped on the corner, unable to walk closer to the gates he could see were twisted and bent, even from where he stood.  

Aedion had avoided coming here all these weeks, though it was only a few blocks from the inn he had selected for its very proximity.  It was visible through much of the city, but from afar it felt more impersonal, like a distant god looking over him.  But tonight…he couldn’t leave, not without seeing it one last time.  When he had been sprung from the tower three years ago, they had fled the city with such haste that he had not thought of anything other than his freedom.  It had never occurred to him that the castle would haunt his dreams.

Blinking the rain from his eyes, it was almost as if he could still see them all.  Rhoe and Evalin, dancing across the lawn to music only they could hear, Aelin clapping her hands and laughing as she watched.  Orlon, smiling benevolently, tugging gently one one of Aelin’s curls while Darrow stood quiet and stoic at his side.  Quinn and Cal and Kenway and Hen, all sparring with him and each other in the training fields that lay behind the castle.  Ren, the only boy who would stand up to him, yelling at him in the stables; tiny Elide, following Aelin around, ducking behind statues and through doorways if Aelin happened to glance her way.  These silent white walls filled with sound and color, all those snuffed-out lives vibrant again for a few brief moments.

He felt a touch on his elbow and whirled, startled, but there was no one there. Shivering a little at his own overactive imagination, he looked back over his shoulder at the castle, ghostly in the fading rain, before starting back to the inn to snatch what sleep he could before the dawn.

*****

Cathal was a bit surprised to find Ashryver already tacked up and waiting for him when he arrived, the sun not quite rising.  His men were standing with him, all eyeing Cathal warily.  One of them, a few years older than the others, he might’ve even said looked threatening.  He had almost forgotten what it was like, to have a family of soldiers.  Ashryver didn’t even know how lucky he was.

Or maybe he did.  One by one, he pulled each of his men into a hug, saying things Cathal couldn’t hear as he did so.  He looked so much older than his years in that moment.  His men stood back as he mounted his big brown mare.  “You have your orders,” the Captain-Prince said, and they bowed as one.  

The city was still asleep, the only sounds as the two of them rode through the gates the horses’ hooves on the road.  Soon even that was muffled, as they left the road to head around the city’s walls and up into the mountains behind.  The spring sun warmed their backs as they climbed.  Cathal was surprised when Ashryver paused before a steeper section and swung off his mare, to lead her instead.  He did the same.  All four of them were sucking air by the time they reached the top and remounted to ride along the ridge before the path began to rise again.

So they continued through the morning.  Once, long before the sun had reached its peak, Ashryver pulled up abruptly, swung his small bow off his shoulder and strung it, and had an arrow nocked and ready before Cathal even heard the flock of geese.  The arrow flew, then a second and a third, each finding a mark before the first bird had even fallen.  Dismounting, he dropped his reins and disappeared into the scrub pine, appearing several minutes later bearing three carcasses that he quickly tied to the back of his saddle.  Before he remounted, he pulled some dried meat out of his pack and held it up.

“Want some?” he asked, the first words either of them had spoken all day.

Cathal shook his head, furrowing his brow.  “It’s not even midday.”

Ashryver bit off a piece and started chewing as he hopped back onto his horse.  “I know,” he said, once he had swallowed.  And that was the extent of their conversation for the day.

They didn’t stop again until the sun had nearly dropped behind the trees and they reached a small level clearing, just big enough for the horses, themselves, and a fire.  Ashryver tended the horses quickly and efficiently while Cathal gathered some wood.  Using his hatchet, he split the damp logs, then shaved one of the split logs into large splinters.  While Cathal got the fire started, Ashryver sat down on a rock and began plucking the geese.

Once the birds were roasting on a makeshift spit just in front of the fire and Cathal was lounging on his bedroll, Ashryver finally spoke.  “Tell me about who we’re going to meet first.”

Cathal looked into the flames, watching them flare briefly as fat from the geese dripped off and splattered.  “The last I knew, Dewar and Grant were living pretty close to each other, another couple days’ ride north and east.  Don’t know if any of their men are with them, or who they’ve kept in touch with.”  He glanced over at the prince, who had moved to turn the birds.  “Clery suggested we go there first.”

“You didn’t agree?”

Cathal chewed his lip for a moment before answering.  “They’ll likely give us a chance to talk at least.”

“But…”  Ashryver looked at him expectantly, waving his hand to encourage him to continue.

Suddenly all Cathal could think of was Dewar’s thick arm around his chest, holding him while he screamed for Muire.  He’d never even seen the blow to his temple coming.  He only knew that Luthais had fought to get to him while they struck him because he’d been told so once he’d come around.  They had ended up knocking Luthais out cold as well.  He had never again spoken to the men involved, not after he had awoken and seen the scornful pity in their eyes.

He didn’t answer, and Ashryver didn’t press him, just went back to tending the geese.  Traveling with the prince was rather like traveling alone, only apparently with better food.  Eventually he dozed off, lulled by the heat and the crackling flames.

Movement woke him a while later.  Ashrver was sliding the cooked geese off the spit and onto a bed of clean leaves.  He sat up abruptly, rubbing a hand over his face.  “Sorry.”

Ashryver glanced at him, amused, then began hacking apart the birds.  He handed Cathal a leg and took one for himself, sitting back on his rock and tearing into it.  Cathal bit into his own, his appetite flaring as the juice from the meat flooded his mouth.  “You can cook,” he said in surprise.

The prince laughed.  “I can sit meat over a fire and not burn it, is all,” he said, cutting himself another large hunk.  Cathal followed suit; unlike Ashryver, who had kept pulling food out of his saddlebags as they rode, he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.  Once they were finally satiated, Ashryver carefully wrapped the rest of the birds in leaves and tucked them into an oilcloth bag, then hung the bag from a tree.

“How’d you learn to cook?” Cathal asked, watching him.  

“One of my uncle’s men taught me.”  His closed expression was utterly foreign to that naturally open face, and Cathal realized how little he really knew about Ashryver.  He knew about the prince - the rumors and reputation he had built both before the takeover and what filtered up from Adarlan afterwards.  Gifted, arrogant, vicious; all of Orynth had been whispering when he’d broken an older boy’s jaw when still a child, and in recent months the whispers had swirled again that he had killed at least two men in Adarlan.  But Cathal had known Rhoe, if only slightly, and would have expected little else from his protege.  Those whispers told nothing about the man himself.

After checking the horses, Ashryver found the softest patch of ground he could and shook out his bedroll.  “What, no tent, Prince?” Cathal quipped, and Ashryver’s grin was visible even in the firelight.

“I thought you were packing the tent and some beds, and a few ladies besides.”

“So sorry to disappoint your highness.  Think you can manage to go a few months without sticking your cock in something?”

An answering laugh rumbled through the clearing.  “I suppose we’ll find out if celibacy proves fatal.”

“Never has yet.”  

The next day went much the same, though the long stretches of silence were punctuated by a bit more conversation.  Cathal found himself explaining that he had once known Dewar well, that the former major had been his commanding officer prior to the invasion.  Grant had been his fellow captain, fighting next to him under Major Ward in the final battles.

He didn’t tell him about Muire or Luthais, not then.  Even though, after how Ashryver had talked about his own lover’s possible fate in Adarlan, he was certain the prince wouldn’t judge him.

That night it rained, and they tucked themselves under the densest possible stand of trees, the horses picketed just outside of it.  A low whicker from one of the horses awoke Cathal hours later.  The rain had ceased, and he could hear the horses pawing.  He wondered if there was a ghost leopard about.  They were a bit farther east than the big cats usually ranged, but it was breeding season so anything was possible.  Still, the horses didn’t sound that fearful, just agitated.

A strangled noise came from his left, followed by intense rustling, and he bolted upright, unable to see much with the clouds and tree branches obscuring the sky.  He freed himself from his bedroll and began crawling towards the noise, patting the ground with his hands until he finally hit wool, then a thrashing body.  His eyes had adapted enough that he could see Ashryver’s big form, twisting violently, blacker than the surrounding dark, but couldn’t find anything or anyone attacking him.  A nightmare?   “Ashryver,” he said, then repeated it, louder, as he shoved at whatever part of him he had encountered.  “Prince!”  There came no reply other than a ragged, sobbing breath.  “Aedion!” he finally shouted, punching out blindly, hoping he wasn’t hitting the poor man in the balls but desperate to wake him up.

The next thing he knew, he was flat on his back, arms pinned on either side of his head, Ashryver snarling viciously in his face.  In that moment, there was nothing human about the prince; indeed, as the moon peeked through the clouds Cathal would’ve even sworn his canines looked longer, though when he blinked again the illusion was gone.  The pressure on his wrists was hard enough the bones groaned.  His legs were trapped painfully under the larger man’s knees; he couldn’t move.  Wouldn’t have dared to, even if he could; some instinct told him any attempt to free himself would get him nothing but a broken neck.

“Aedion,” he breathed, and Ashryver blinked.  “Aedion, it’s all right.  You’re all right.  It was a dream.”  A second later he was free, and Ashryver was retching next to him.  He sat up slowly.

“Shit, Aedion…”  There was no answer other than hoarse breathing.  “Does that happen often?”

“Not too often anymore,” Ashryver said, gagging one last time before wiping his mouth.  “You shouldn’t have woken me up, I could have killed you.”

“If you think I’m going to let anyone suffer like that, even in your sleep, think again,” Cathal snapped.

A low, mirthless laugh was the only response.

Cathal didn’t even want to consider the possibilities of what Ashryver might have been reliving.  There were certainly things that could happen to a man during the normal course of battle to make him react like that even years later, and he had been so young during the invasion.  That night at Clery’s, Ashryver had told about having his fingers broken, about being dropped in a prison pit, about being tied down and beaten, but…even as he had spoken, Cathal had suspected they weren’t hearing the worst of it.

He crawled the rest of the way out from under the trees and stood.  The horses were quiet now, the air cool and damp.  For some reason he found himself crying.  It was so strange; he had never been able to shed a tear for Luthias.  Two years, seven months, and sixteen days without a single tear.  There was movement behind him as Ashryver got to his feet, and he swiped furtively at his cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” came the deep, rolling voice.  “Did I hurt you?”  He knew he would have bruises, but that wasn’t what was troubling him; he shook his head, not trusting his voice.  A broad hand landed on his shoulder and he startled; he hadn’t even heard footsteps in the leaves.  “Sorry,” Ashryver said again, letting his hand drop.

Cathal glanced over his shoulder, catching the prince’s concerned look in the dim light.  “I’m fine,” he said, hoping Ashryver wouldn’t notice the thickness in his voice but knowing that he would.  He cleared his throat.  “We’re going to do this,” he said fervently.

“Do what?”

“This.  We’re going to raise the Bane, and turn it against that murdering bastard, and take down everyone who stands against us.”  He turned to face Ashryver fully.  The prince dropped his head, looking at the ground for a long moment before meeting his eyes.  

“I won’t fail you,” Ashryver vowed, holding out the hand with the scar he’d given himself.

Cathal shook it, squeezing, smiling a little at the answering pressure.

*****

Mikkal sat on Chetak, looking not at the road curving to the east but across the rolling grassy hills to the north.  The gods knew his heart called him there.  

The paper in his saddlebag ordered him east, to Rifthold.  When the letter had finally come, he had not been released from his service as expected.  No, the accursed paper had contained a commendation for his bravery, and an order to return to Rifthold to discuss his prospects.  Even General Chambers had been surprised.  

He could disappear.  There was no one around, no one to see.  If he wasn’t in the city at the prescribed day, five days hence, who would care?   But Adarlan did not take kindly to deserters, they were pursued aggressively regardless of their status.  A deserter who was an officer, and a general’s son no less, would be a prize for any bounty hunter.  And if he led them to Aedion, to whatever he was planning in the north…He couldn’t risk it, couldn’t risk him.

Sighing through the pain as his heart fractured again, he reined Chetak east.

[letthenexttrytheirluck]

“bee care full win yew ewes spell checque:?.”

– Pamela Pantsuit

“But the mere truth won’t do. You must have a lawyer.”

– Dr. Allan Woodcourt to the wrongly accused George Rouncewell, in Charles Dickens’s Bleak House

“It could have been prevented. That is the message [to pharmaceutical companies]. Respect us.”

– Juror Derrick Chizer, who voted against Merck in the first Vioxx case to go to trial, who said the 10 like-minded jurors believed a heart attack triggered the Plaintiff’s fatal arrhythmia.

“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” (Dick the Butcher to Jack Cade in Henry VI, Part 2 (1592) act 4, sc. 2. – Shakespeare’s misquoted implication that lawyers stand in the way of tyranny.) – W. Shakespeare (1564-1616)

“I shall not rest until every German sees that it is a shameful thing to be a lawyer.” -Adolph Hitler

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“The future has several names. For the weak, it is impossible. For the fainthearted, it is unknown. For the thoughtful and valiant, it is ideal.”

-Victor Hugo

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“Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.”

-Anonymous ancient proverb, wrongly attributed to Euripides. The version here is quoted as a “heathen proverb” in Daniel: A Model for Young Men (1854) by William Anderson Scott

“We love lawyers. If there weren’t any lawyers, there wouldn’t be any jokes!” -Click and Clack

“The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

“Where law ends, tyranny begins.” – William Pitt

“…Freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and the blood of our heros have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith.” – Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address (1801)

“For 500 years the West patented six killer applications that set it apart. The first to download them was Japan. Over the last century, one Asian country after another has downloaded these killer apps- competition, modern science, the rule of law and private property rights, modern medicine, the consumer society and the work ethic. Those six things are the secret sauce of Western civilization.” – Harvard historian Niall Ferguson, Civilization: The West and the Rest

“Fiat justitia ruat caelum.”

– Latin phrase meaning “Let justice be done though the heavens fall”; attributed to Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, the father-in-law of Julius Caesar

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“As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and if no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever.”

– Clarence Darrow (1857-1938), prominent American lawyer

“Consider the reason of the case, for nothing is law that is not reason.” –  Sir John Powell

“If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” -Atticus Finch, in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird

“The jury system has come to stand for all we mean by English justice. The scrutiny of 12 honest jurors provides defendants and plaintiffs alike a safeguard from arbitrary perversion of the law.” -Winston Churchill

“The one governmental agency that has no ambition.” – Justice William O. Douglas, on the Supreme Court

“I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.” – Thomas Jefferson (1788)

“Laws are the sovereigns of sovereigns.” – Louis XIV

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“The pen is mightier than the sword.”

– Edward Bulwer-Lytton

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“What I want is a competent lawyer who will counsel me. … I also need him with me at my trial and in hearings. … I would also like to be able to sue him if I later conclude that I have been defectively or inadequately counseled, because I feel that I have received less than satisfactory service in the past. It occurs to me that … we each will feel as though we are caged with a rattlesnake: There is going to be mutual fear, mistrust, dislike, and a contest for dominance. I don’t consider it my fault, however.”

– Randall S. Boyd of Denton, TX, in a prose motion seeking appointment of counsel

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“To the wise, a word is sufficient.”

– Prince John Lackland, before the return of King Richard

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“Life’s real victories must be shared.” – Former President Bill Clinton on the passing of Former President Nelson Mandela

“There’s always room for a good lawyer.” – Milas Hale

“A law is valuable not because it is law, but because there is right in it.”

– Henry Ward Beecher

“If you want peace, work for justice” – Pope Paul VI

“Laws are the very bulkwarks of liberty; they define every man’s rights, and defend the individual liberties of all men.” – J.G. Holland

“Law is the embodiment of the moral sentiment of the people.” – William Blackstone

“When you’re up to your nose in shit, keep your mouth shut.” – Jack Beauregard, played by Henry Fonda. My Name is Nobody.

“The safety of the people shall be the highest law.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Plead the Fifth.” – Gary Vert

“Justice denied anywhere diminishes justice everywhere.” –Martin Luther King, Jr.

“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!” – Barry Goldwater

“Predicting coding algorithms are already able to do much of the legal research lawyers do. Before long, ‘there will be many thousands of lawyers out of work,’ one legal expert told Pew. Don’t all weep at once.”

– Rick Newman on the fate of lawyers, in his August 2014 article 28 Jobs Endangered by Technology, viaYahoo Finance

“Whereas the law is passionless, passion must ever sway the heart of man.” – Aristotle

“Every man is enthusiastic at times. One man has enthusiasm for 30 minutes, another man has it for 30 days. But it is the man who has it for 30 years who makes a success in life.” – Edward B. Butler

“V. The next fpecies of trial is of great antiquity, but much difuted; though ftill in force if the parties chufe to abide by it: I mean the trial by wager of battel. This feems to have owed it’s original to the military fpirit of our anceftors, joined to a fuperftitious frame of mind; it being in the nature of an appeal to providence, under an apprehenfion and hope (however prefumptous and unwarrantable) that heaven would give the victory to him who had the right. The decifion of fuits, by this appeal to the God of battels, is by fome faid to have been invented by the Burgundi, one of the northern or German clans that planted themfelves in Gaul. And it is true, that the firft written injuction of judiciary combats that we meet with, is in the laws of Gundebald, A. D. 501, which are preferved in the Burgundian code. Yet it does not feem to have been merely a local cuftom of this or that particular tribe, but to have been the common ufage of all thofe warlike people from the earlieft times. And it may alfo feem from a paffage in Velleius Paterculus, that the Germans, when firft they became knwon to the Romans, were wont to decide all contefts of right by the fword: for when Quintilius Varus endeavoured to introduce among them the Roman laws and method of trial, it was looked upon (fays the hiftorian) as a “novitas incognitae difciplinae, ut folita armis “decerni, jure terminarentur.” And among the antient Goths in Sweden we find the practice of judiciary duels eftablifhed upon much the fame footing as they formerly were in our own country.”

-“A description of the “great antiquity” of “the trial by wager of battle” from Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, Volume III, p. 337 (1768)

“A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client.” – early-19th century proverb found in Henry Kett’s The flowers of wit, or a choice collection of bon mots (1814)

“All bad precedents begin with justifiable measures.” – Julius Ceasar – Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae, J.T. Ramsey ed (1984)

“The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right…” – Judge Learned Hand

“I think the first duty of society is justice.” – Alexander Hamilton

“Tremble, all ye oppressors of the world! – Richard Price

“Remember always that all of us…are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

“True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.” – Clarence Darrow

“A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations…is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism.” – Abraham Lincoln

“When you have no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff.” – Cicero

“Beware the smoke screen!” – Gary Vert

“Right… is the child of law.” – Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)

“I wholly disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” – S.G. Tallentyre, The Friends of Voltaire (1906)

“Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.” – Abraham Lincoln

“Argument weak; speak loudly!”

– a handwritten note by Theodore Roosevelt in the margins of one of his speeches

“When it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.”

– G. K. Chesterton, speaking of society

“By obliging men to turn their attention to other affairs than their own, it rubs off that private selfishness which is the rust of society.” – de Tocqueville on jury service

“It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.”

– Chief Justice John Marshall

“These are the times that try men’s souls.”

– Thomas Paine, “The Crises” (published after Washington’s army had to retreat from Long Island to Breucklyn)

“Take to the study of the law. Possession is nine points of it, which thou hast of me. Self-possession is the tenth . . .”

– R.D. Blackmore, Lorna Doone

“Come now, and let us reason together . . .” – The Song of Solomon – Isaiah

The wisdom of our sages and the blood of our heroes has been devoted to the attainment of trial by jury. It should be the creed of our political faith. -Thomas Jefferson First Inaugural Address 1801

“There is sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.” –Washington Irving (1783-1859)

“You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.” – Author Unknown

“Very few souls are saved after the first five minutes of the sermon.” – Mark Twain

“The law is reason free from passion.” -Aristotle

SIR EDWARD COKE (1552-1634)

“Reason is the life of the law; nay, the common law itself is nothing else but reason…The law, which is perfection of reason.” – First Institute [1628]

“For a man’s house is his castle, et domus sua cuique tutissimum refugium.” – Third Institute [1644]

“The house of everyone is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defense against injury and violence as for his repose.” – Semayne’s Case. 5 Report 91

“They [corporations] cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed nor excommunicate, for they have no souls.” – Case of Sutton’s Hospital. 10 Report 32

“Learn to do right; seek justice, encourage the oppressed, defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.” – The Song of Solomon – Isaiah 1:17

“The Seventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States: ‘In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.’”

“Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh. -Shakespeare: Hamlet III, i, 162

“Lincoln’s image is sometimes invoked as a model for lawyer advertising, with his advertising having been the feature of at least one recent television campaign for legal services. Other times, he, obviously, is advanced as the highest example of professionalism. He is probably an excellent illustration of the ability of a lawyer in that era to combine aspects of commercialism, competence and dignity in the practice of law.” -American Bar Association, Commission on Advertising, Lawyer Advertising at the Crossroads: Professional Policy Considerations 31-32 (1995).

“Our reason is our law.” -Milton: Paradise Lost, bk. IX, l. 652

“The sleep of reason produces monsters [El sueño de la razón produce monstruos].” – Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes: Los Caprichos [1799]. Plate 43¹

“Education is what you get by reading the fine print; experience is what you get if you don’t read it.”

– from The Furrow, Volume 119, Issue 6

Judge: “Is there any reason you could not serve as a juror on this case?”

Juror: “I don’t want to be away from my job that long.”

Judge: “Can’t they do without you at work?”

Juror: “Certainly, but I don’t want them to know it.”

– from The Furrow, Volume 119, Issue 6

“Lawyers are like other people — fools on the average; but it is easier for an ass to succeed in that trade than any other.”

– Mark Twain

“Man is a reasoning animal.” -Lucius Annaeus Seneca: Epistles, 41,8

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” – Wendell Phillips (1811-1884), abolitionist, orator and columnist for The Liberator, in a speech before the Massachusetts Antislavery Society in 1852.

“Woe to those who enact unjust statutes and who write oppressive decrees, depriving the needy of judgment and robbing my peoples’ poor of their rights, making widows their plunder, and orphans their prey.” – Isaiah 10:1-2.

“Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” – Robert F. Kennedy (1925-1968, American Attorney General, Senator)

“About half the practice of a decent lawyer consists in telling would-be clients that they are damned fools and should stop.” – Elihu Root

“A crooked thing is ruined and fit only to ruin everything else. (Chose tournée est corrumpue et propre à tout faire tourner par suite.)”

– Guillaume le Maréchal, III, 170

“[The law] is a jealous mistress, and requires a long and constant courtship. It is not to be won by trifling favors, but by lavish homage.” The Value and Importance of Legal Studies – Joseph Story, (1779-1845)

“All the sovereigns who have chosen to govern by their own authority, and to direct society instead of obeying its directions, have destroyed or enfeebled the institution of the jury. The Tudor monarchs sent to prison jurors who refused to convict, and Napoleon caused them to be selected by his agents.” “The institution of the jury, if confined to criminal causes, is always in danger; but when once it is introduced into civil proceedings, it defies the aggressions of time and man. If it had been as easy to remove the jury from the customs as from the laws of England, it would have perished under the Tudors, and the civil jury did in reality at that period save the liberties of England.” – de Tocqueville on civil jury trials

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” – origin unknown; attributed to several sources but made especially popular by Mark Twain’s Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review

“Statistician. A person who draws a mathematically precise line between an unwarranted assumption and a foregone conclusion.” – author unknown

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.” – Samuel Johnson

“It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people.” – Justice Felix Frankfurter, dissenting, United States v. Rabinowitz (1950)

“I used to say that, as Solicitor General, I made three arguments of every case. First came the one that I planned–as I thought, logical, coherent, complete. Second was the one actually presented–interrupted, incoherent, disjointed, disappointing. The third was the utterly devastating argument that I thought of after going to bed that night.” – Robert H. Jackson, Advocacy Before the Supreme Court (1951)

“Judicial reform is no sport for the short-winded.” – Arthur T. Vanderbilt

“To be a successful contingency attorney requires three things: 1). Accept only good cases; 2). Settle the good cases; and 3). Try the rest.”

– Gary Vert

“And do as adversaries do in law –

Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends. – William Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew – Act 1 Scene 2

“It usually takes three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.” – Mark Twain

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” – Mark Twain

“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.” – President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1952

“What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow; that is the whole Law: the rest is interpretation.” – Hillel (30 B.C.- 10.A.D.) Source: Talm

Seek justice for all . . . Champion the cause of those who deserve redress for injury to personal property . . . Promote the public good through concerted efforts to secure safe products, a safe work place, a clean environment, and quality healthcare . . . Further the rule of law in a civil justice system, and protect the rights of the accused . . . Advance the common law and the finest traditions of jurisprudence . . . and uphold the honor and dignity of the legal profession and the highest standards of ethical conduct and integrity. – Mission Statement – Association of Trial Lawyers of America

“He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: . . . For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:” – List of Colonists’ Grievances against King George III, Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

“The law must have the last word.” – French President Jacques Chirac in response to rioters in France November 6, 2005

“The study of law is sublime, and its practice vulgar.” – Oscar Wilde

“No man is above the law and no man below it.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually also recognize the voice of justice.” – Alexander Solzhenitsyn

“Simple is good.” – Jim Henson

“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – – deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth – – persistent, persuasive, unrealistic.” – John F. Kennedy

“As citizens of this democracy, you are the rulers and the ruled, the law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end.” – Adlai Ewing Stevenson

“It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.” – Voltaire, Zadig, 1747

“Our defense is not in our armaments, nor in science, nor in going underground. Our defense is in law and order.” – Albert Einstein

“Unkindness has no remedy at law.” – Thomas Fuller (1654 – 1734) comp., Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs,5402, 1732.

“The precepts of the law are these: to live honestly, to injure no one, and to give everyone his due.” Justinian I (482/483-565). – Justinian Code, A.D. 533.

“There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.” Moses (14th Century B.C.). – Exodus 12:49

“They that make laws must not break them.” – John Ray (1628 – 1705). Comp., A Collection of English Proverbs, p. 166, 1678.

“Ignorance of the law excuses no man, not that all men know the law, but ’tis an excuse every man will plead and no man can tell how to confute him.” – John Selden (1584 – 1654). “LAW” (2), Table Talk, 1689, ed. Frederick Pollock, 1927.

“Possession is nine-tenths of the law. Lord Mansfield (1705 – 1793). – Corporation of Kingston – upon – Hull v. Horner, 1774.

“The success of any legal system is measured by its fidelity to the universal ideal of justice.” Earl Warren (1891 – 1974). “The Law and the Future,” – Fortune Magazine, November 1955.

“Lawyers with a weakness for seeing the merits of the other side end up being employed by neither.” – Richard J. Barnet (1929 – 2004). Roots of War. 3.3, 1971.

Saying

(Latin): The law is not concerned with trifles.

The more laws, the less justice.

Where the law is uncertain, there is no law.

(Spanish): One lawyer makes work for another.

(German): A lawyer and a wagon wheel must be well greased.

“It is unwise to pay too much but it is worse to pay too little. When you pay too much you lose a little money. When you pay too little you sometimes lose everything because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common sense law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot. It can’t be done.” – John Ruskin

“When law and nature collide, nature usually wins.” – Forrest Reynolds, June 1, 2012, on discussing the verdict in the John Edwards case

“Lawyers are just like physicians; what one says the other contradicts. -Sholem Aleiche

“One thing I have learned from this experience is that it is hard to keep an audience attentive and involved with a “speech,” but it’s easy if you tell a story that involves your listeners and inspires them with a memorable moral.”

– Jim M. Perdue

“He is no lawyer who cannot take two sides.” -Charles Lamb

“You get a reasonable doubt for a reasonable price.” -Criminal attorney’s saying

“Lawyers help those who help themselves.” -Anonymous

“It is true that, of the people of my Gracious Prince here, some out of all offices and faculties must be executed: clerics, electoral councilors and doctors, city officials, court assessors, several of whom Your Grace knows. There are law students to be arrested. … The notary of our Church consistory, a very learned man, was yesterday arrested and put to the torture. In a word, a third part of the city is surely involved. The richest, most attractive, most prominent of the clergy are already executed. … I have seen put to death children of seven, promising students of ten, twelve, fourteen, and fifteen.” –A Letter from Würzburg (1629), reprinted in Witchcraft in Europe 400-1700353-54 (Alan Charles Kors and Edward Peters eds., University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001)

“Lawyers are a learned class of very ignorant men.”

-Erasmus, Dutch philosopher and theologian

“I am not afraid of lawyers as I used to be. They are lambs in wolves’ clothing.” -Edna St. Vincent Millay

“If you laid all of our laws end to end, there would be no end.” -Mark Twain

“‘Curio vult advisari,’ as the lawyers say; which means, ‘Let us have another glass, and then we can think about it.'”

– R.D. Blackmore, Lorna Doone

[Curia advisari vult is a Latin legal term meaning “the court wishes to consider the matter” (literally, “the court wishes to be advised”), a term reserving judgment until some subsequent day. It often appears in case reports, abbreviated as “Cur. adv. vult”, or sometimes “c.a.v.” or “CAV”, when the bench takes time for deliberation after hearing counsel’s submissions.]

“Law is the second oldest profession.” -Anonymous

“Thus tis we say though quite uncivil, A cunning lawyer beats the devil!” -Early American Rhyme

“Sometimes a man who deserves to be looked upon because he is a fool is despised only because he is a lawyer.” -Montesquieu

“May you have a lawsuit in which you know you are right.” -Spanish Gypsy curse

“He that loves the law will get his fill of it.” -Scottish proverb

“There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.” -Michel de Montaigne

“He wastes his tears who weeps before the judge.” -Italian proverb

“That one hundred and fifty lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected.” -Thomas Jefferson (referring to the U.S. Congress)

“Love all men – except lawyers.” -Irish proverb

“Pride only breeds quarrels, but wisdom is found in those who take advice” – Proverbs 13:10

“I, Lucius Titus, have written this my testament without any lawyer, following my own natural reason rather than excessive and miserable diligence.” -The will of a citizen of Rome

“They do tricks even I can’t figure out.” -Harry Houdini

“If it weren’t for the lawyers we wouldn’t need them.” -William Jennings Bryan

“Great management decisions make themselves” -Bob Howe

“The very definition of a good award is that it gives dissatisfaction to both parties.” – Goodman C. Sayers

“Our holding will be spelled out with some specificity in the pages which follow but briefly stated it is this: the prosecution may not use statements, whether exculpatory or inculpatory, stemming from custodial interrogation of the defendant unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the privilege against self-incrimination. By custodial interrogation, we mean questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way.” – Earl Warren, Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444 (1966)

“The power of a sonorous phrase to command uncritical acceptance has often been encountered in the law.” – Calvert Magruder, “Mental and Emotional Disturbance in the Law of Torts,” 49 Harvard -Law Review 1033, 1033 (1936)

“I left law school more than 40 years ago, and I still have that dream – and not infrequently.” – Paul Kelly on anxiety-producing exams

Judge: Are you trying to show contempt for the court? Flower Bell Lee [played by Mae West]: No, I’m doing my best to hide it. – Mae West and W.C. Fields, My Little Chickadee (screenplay), 1940, quoted in The Wit and Wisdom of Mae West 51 (Joseph Weintraub ed. 1970)

“A cent or a pepper corn, in legal estimation, would constitute a valuable consideration.” – Nicholas Emery, Whitney v. Stearns, 16 Me. 394, 397 (1839)

“But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal-there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court. It can be the Supreme Court of the United State or the humblest J.P. court in the land, or this honorable court which you serve. Our courts have their faults, as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal.” – Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird 218 (1960)

“It is not enough to say, that in the opinion of the court, the damages are too high and that we would have given much less. It is the judgment of the jury, and not the judgment of the court, which is to assess the damages in actions for personal torts and injuries….The damages, therefore, must be so excessive as to strike mankind, at first blush, as being beyond all measure, unreasonable and outrageous, and such as manifestly show the jury to have been actuated by passion, partiality, prejudice, or corruption. In short, the damages must be flagrantly outrageous and extravagant, or the court cannot undertake to draw the line; for they have no standard by which to ascertain the excess.” – James Kent, Coleman v. Southwick, 9 Johns. 45, 51-52 (N.Y. 1818)

“More truly characteristic of dissent is a dignity, an elevation, of mood and thought and phrase. Deep conviction and warm feeling are saying their last say with knowledge that the cause is lost. The voice of the majority may be that of force triumphant, content with the plaudits of the hour, and recking little of the morrow. The dissenter speaks to the future, and his voice is pitched to a key that will carry through the years.” – Benjamin N. Cardozo, Law and Literature 36 (1931)

It shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universitis [sic], Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals. – Act of Mar. 13, 1925, ch. 27, § 1, 1925 Tenn. Pub. Acts 50, 50-51

“A grand jury would ‘indict a ham sandwich,’ if that’s what you wanted.” – Tom Wolfe (quoting New York State chief judge Sol Wachtler) in The Bonfire of the Vanities

“If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach it in the public school, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools, and the next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers. Soon you may set Catholic against Protestant and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the minds of men. If you can do one you can do the other. Ignorance and fanaticism is ever busy and needs feeding. Always it is feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers, tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After while, your honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth century when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightment and culture to the human mind.” – Clarence S. Darrow, Speech at Scopes Trial, Dayton, Tenn., 13 July 1925, in The World’s Most Famous Court Trial 87 (1925)

“Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination.” – Harry S. Truman, Address at the National Archives, Washington, D.C., 15 Dec., 1952, in Public Papers of the Presidents: Harry S. Truman, 1952-53, at 1077, 1079 (1966)

“Since the earliest days philosophers have dreamed of a country where the mind and spirit of man would be free; where there would be no limits to inquiry; where men would be free to explore the unknown and to challenge the most deeply rooted beliefs and principles. Our First Amendment was a bold effort to adopt this principle – to establish a country with no legal restrictions of any kind upon the subjects people could investigate, discuss and deny. The Framers knew, better perhaps than we do today, the risks they were taking. They knew that free speech might be the friend of change and revolution. But they also knew that it is always the deadliest enemy of tyranny. With this knowledge they still believed that the ultimate happiness and security of a nation lies in its ability to explore, to change, to grow and ceaselessly to adapt itself to new knowledge born of inquiry free from any kind of governmental control over the mind and spirit of man. Loyalty comes from love of good government, not fear of a bad one.” – Hugo L. Black, “The Bill of Rights,” 35 New York University Law Review 865, 880-81 (1960)

“The issue of a cause rarely depends upon a speech and is but seldom even affected by it. But there is never a cause contested, the result of which is not mainly dependent upon the skill with which the advocate conducts his cross-examination.”

. . .

“A good advocate should be a good actor. The most cautious cross-examiner will often elicit a damaging answer. Now is the time for the greatest self-control. If you show by your face how the answer hurt, you may lose your case by that one point alone. How often one sees the cross-examiner fairly staggered by such an answer. He pauses, perhaps blushes, and after he has allowed the answer to have its full effect, finally regains his self-possession, but seldom his control of the witness…..” – “Francis Wellman” “The Art of Cross-Examination (1903, 1904)”

“The practice of law is a busyness.” -Gary Vert

“We can imagine . . . no better way to counter a flag-burner’s message than by saluting the flag that burns. . . We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the freedom that this cherished emblem represents.” – William J. Brennan, Jr. Texas v. Johnson, 109 S. Ct. 2533, 2547-48 (1989)

“It is a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr. Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.” – Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop

“You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man’s freedom. You can only be free if I am free.” – Clarence S. Darrow, Address to jury, Communist Trial, 1920, in Attorney for the Damned 121, 140 (Arthur Weinberg ed. 1957)

“And I honor the man who is willing to sink Half his present repute for the freedom to think, And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak, Will risk t’ other half for the freedom to speak.” – James Russell Lowell, “A Fable for Critics,” 1848, in Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell 114, 136 (Horace E. Scudder ed. 1925)

“The wisest thing to do with a fool is to encourage him to hire a hall and discourse to his fellow-citizens. Nothing chills nonsense like exposure to the air.” – Woodrow Wilson, Constitutional Government in the United States 38 (1908)

“That the freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.” – Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776, § 12, in Federal and State Constitutions 7:3812, 3814 (Francis N. Thorpe ed. 1909)

“Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” – A.J. Liebling, “The Wayward Press: Do you belong in Journalism?” New Yorker, 14 May 1960, at 105, 109

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” – Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” 16 Apr. 1963, in Why We Can’t Wait 77, 79 (1964)

“We disclaim altogether any jurisdiction in the courts of the United States upon the subject of divorce, or for the allowance of alimony.” – James M. Wayne, Barber v. Barber, 62 U.S. (21 How.) 582, 584 (1858)

“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.” – Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776, § 11, in Federal and State Constitutions 7:3812, 3814 (Francis N. Thorpe ed. 1909)

“Where there is Hunger, Law is not regarded; and where Law is not regarded, there will be Hunger.” – Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1755, in Papers of Benjamin Franklin 5:472 (Leonard W. Labaree ed. 1962)

“Ignorance of the law is no excuse in any country. If it were, the laws would lose their effect, because it can always be pretended.” – Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Andre Limozin, 22 Dec. 1787, in Papers of Thomas Jefferson 12:451 (Julian P. Boyd ed. 1955)

“I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.” – Ulysses S. Grant, First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1869, in Messages and Papers of the Presidents 7:6, 6 (James D. Richardson ed. 1898)

“Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling never fails of employment in it.” – Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, 22 June 1792, in Writings of Thomas Jefferson 6:92 (Paul L. Ford ed. 1895)

“Our profession is good, if practiced in the spirit of it; it is damnable fraud and iniquity when its true spirit is supplied by a spirit of mischief-making and money catching.” – Daniel Webster, Letter to James Hervey Bingham, 19 Jan. 1806, in Papers of Daniel Webster: Legal Papers 1.69

[When advised not to become a lawyer because the profession was overcrowded:] “There is always room at the top.” – Daniel Webster, quoted in Edward Latham, Famous Sayings and Their Authors 65 (1904)

“Whatever their failings as a class may be, and however likely to lose their immortal souls, lawyers do not generally lose papers.” – Arthur Train, “Hocus-Pocus,” in Tut, Tut! Mr. Tutt 119, 120 (1923)

“Look well to the right of you, look well to the left of you, for one of you three won’t be here next year.” – Edward H. Warren, quoted in W. Barton Leach, “Look Well to the Right…,” 58 Harvard Law Review 1137, 1138 (1945)

On one occasion a student made a curiously inept response to a question from Professor Warren. “The Bull” roared at him, “You will never make a lawyer. You might just as well pack up your books now and leave the school.” The student rose, gathered his notebooks, and started to leave, pausing only to say in full voice, “I accept your suggestion, Sir, but I do not propose to leave without giving myself the pleasure of telling you to go plumb straight to Hell.” “Sit down, Sir, sit down,” said “The Bull.” “Your response makes it clear that my judgment was too hasty.” – Joseph N. Welch, “Edward Henry Warren,” 58 Harvard Law Review 1134, 1136 (1945)

“They have a proverb here [in London], which I do not know how to account for ; – in speaking of a difficult point, they say, it would puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer*.” – “A Humorous Description of the Manners and Fashions of London; in a Letter from a Citizen of America to his Correspondent in Philadelphia,” 2 Columbian Magazine 181, 182 (1788) *This is the earliest known usage of the phrase Philadelphia lawyer to mean “a shrewd lawyer expert in legal technicalities.” This term may have been inspired by Philadelphia attorney Andrew Hamilton’s successful defense of John Peter Zenger in a New York court in 1735.

Searching for quotations on lawyers, I found this on your site:

“They have a proverb here [in London], which I do not know how to account for ; – in speaking of a difficult point, they say, it would puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer*.”

– “A Humorous Description of the Manners and Fashions of London; in a Letter from a Citizen of America to his Correspondent in Philadelphia,” 2 Columbian Magazine 181, 182 (1788) *This is the earliest known usage of the phrase Philadelphia lawyer to mean “a shrewd lawyer expert in legal technicalities.” This term may have been inspired by Philadelphia attorney Andrew Hamilton’s successful defense of John Peter Zenger in a New York court in 1735.

There is a much earlier use of “Philadelphia lawyer”. The Gospel of Luke, in KJV, refers to “a certain lawyer” who asked “Who is my neighbor?” [“To whom do I owe a duty of care?”] Other translations say that “the lawyer of Philadelphia” asked this question. The city called Philadelphia in Bible times is the city now known as Amman, Jordan.

I learned this in New Testament Studies at Pacific Lutheran University here in Tacoma, Washington.

Theresa Tilton, Attorney at Law

************************************** Luke 10:25-37 (King James Version) King James Version (KJV)

And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live. But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour? And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.

“Let me not be thought as intending anything derogatory to the profession of the law, or to the distinguished members of that illustrious order. Well am I aware that we have in this ancient city innumerable worthy gentlemen, the knights-errant of modern days, who go about redressing wrongs and defending the defenseless, not for the love of filthy lucre, nor the selfish cravings of renown, but merely for the pleasure of doing good. Sooner would I throw this trusty pen into the flames and cork up my ink bottle forever, than infringe even for a nail’s breadth upon the dignity of these truly benevolent champions of the distressed. On the contrary, I allude merely to those caitiff scouts who, in these latter days of evil, infest the skirts of the profession, as did the recreant Cornish knights of yore the honorable order of chivalry, – who under its auspices, commit flagrant wrongs, – who thrive by quibbles, by quirks and chicanery, and like vermin increase the corruption in which they are engendered.” – Washington Irving, The History of New York 261-62 (1868) (1809)

“A French observer is surprised to hear how often an English or an American lawyer quotes the opinions of others, and how little he alludes to his own; … This abnegation of his own opinion, and this implicit deference to the opinion of his forefathers, which are common to the English and American lawyer, this servitude of thought which he is obliged to profess, necessarily give him more timid habits and more conservative inclinations in England and America than in France.” – Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America 1:353 (Francis Bowen trans. 1862) (1835)

“The good judge is not he who does hair-splitting justice to every allegation, but who, aiming at substantial justice, rules something intelligible for the guidance of suitors. The good lawyer is not the man who has an eye to every side and angle of contingency, and qualifies all his qualifications, but who throws himself on your part so heartily that he can get you out of a scrape.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Power,” The Conduct of Life, 1860, in Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson 6:53, 76 (1904)

“Your law may be perfect, your knowledge of human affairs may be such as to enable you to apply it with wisdom and skill, and yet without individual acquaintance with men, their haunts and habits, the pursuit of the profession becomes difficult, slow, and expensive. A lawyer who does not know men is handicapped.” – Louis D. Brandeis, Letter to William H. Dunbar, 2 Feb. 1893, in Letters of Louis D. Brandeis 1:108 (Melvin I. Urofsky and David W. Levy eds. 1971)

“Courage is the most important attribute of a lawyer. It is more important than competence or vision. It can never be an elective in any law school. It can never be de-limited, dated or outworn, and it should pervade the heart, the halls of justice and the chambers of the mind.” – Robert F. Kennedy, Speech at University of San Francisco Law School, San Francisco, 29 Sept. 1962, quoted in Sue G. Hall, The Quotable Robert F. Kennedy 111 (1967)

“One hires lawyers as on hires plumbers, because one wants to keep one’s hands off the beastly drains.” – Amanda Cross, The Question of Max 61 (1976)

“Send lawyers, guns and money, the shit has hit the fan.” – Warren Zevon, “Lawyers, Guns and Money’ (song) (1978)

“Some debts are not to be reckoned.” – Thomas Cromwell, played by Mark Rylance, on PBS’s Wolf Hall, Season 1 Episode 2 (2015)

“The lawyers’ contribution to the civilizing of humanity is evidenced in the capacity of lawyers to argue furiously in the courtroom, then sit down as friends over a drink or dinner. This habit is often interpreted by the layman as a mark of their ultimate corruption. In my opinion, it is their greatest moral achievement: It is a characteristic of humane tolerance that is most desperately needed at the present time.”

– John R. Silber, quoted in Wall Street Journal, 16 Mar. 1972, at 14

“Anyone who believes a better day dawns when lawyers are eliminated bears the burden of explaining who will take their place. Who will protect the poor, the injured, the victims of negligence, the victims of racial violence?” – John J. Curtin, Jr., Remarks to American Bar Association, Atlanta, 13 Aug. 1991, quoted in Time, 26 Aug. 1991, at 54

“Lawyers, Preachers, and Tomtits Eggs, there are more of them hatch’d than come to perfection.” – Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1734, in Papers of Benjamin Franklin 1:354 (Leonard W. Labaree ed. 1959)

“I should apologize, perhaps, for the style of this bill. I dislike the verbose and intricate style of the English statutes, and in our revised code I endeavored to restore it to the simple one of the ancient statues, in such original bills as I drew in that work. I suppose the reformation has not been acceptable, as it has been little followed. You, however, can easily correct this bill to the taste of my brother lawyers, by making every other word a “said” or “aforesaid,” and saying everything over two or three times, so that nobody but we of the craft can untwist the diction, and find out what it means; and that, too, not so plainly but that we may conscientiously divide one half on each side. Mend it, therefore, in form and substance to the orthodox taste, and make it what it should be; or, if you think it radically wrong, try something else, and let us make a beginning in some way. No matter how wrong, experience will amend it as we go along, and make it effectual in the end.” – Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Joseph C. Cabell, 9 Sept. 1817, in Writings of Thomas Jefferson 17:417-18 (Andrew A. Lipscomb ed. 1904)

“There are two things wrong with almost all legal writing. One is its style. The other is its content.” – Fred Rodell, “Goodbye to Law Reviews,” 23 Virginia Law Review 38, 38 (1936)

“Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment.” – Mark Twain, “The Gorky Incident,” 1906, in Mark Twain: Letters From the Earth 155, 156 (Bernard De Voto ed. 1939)

“What we need to do is to stop passing laws. We have enough laws now to govern the world for the next 10,000 years. Every crank who has a foolish notion that he would like to impose upon everybody else hastens to some legislative body and demands that it be graven upon the statutes. Every fanatic who wants to control his neighbor’s conduct is here or at some other legislative body demanding that a law be passed to regulate that neighbor’s conduct.” – James A. Reed, in 67 Congressional Record 10,708 (1926)

“The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.” – Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 163 (1803) See also OBEDIENCE TO LAW 2, OBEDIENCE TO LAW 3

“In the United States, every one is personally interested in enforcing the obedience of the whole community to the law; for as the minority may shortly rally the majority to its principles, it is interested in professing that respect for the decrees of the legislator which it may soon have occasion to claim for its own. However irksome an enactment may be, the citizen of the United States complies with it, not only because it is the work of the majority, but because it is his own, and he regards it as a contract to which he is himself a party. ” – Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America 1:317 (Francis Bowen trans. 1862) (1835)

“As [a citizen] is a “law-maker,” he should not be a “law-breaker,” for he ought to be conscious that every departure from the established ordinances of society is an infraction of his rights. His power can only be maintained by the supremacy of the laws, as in monarchies, the authority of the king is asserted by obedience to his orders. The citizen in lending a cheerful assistance to the ministers of the law, on all occasions, is merely helping to maintain his own power. This feature in particular, distinguishes the citizen from the subject.” – James Fenimore Cooper, The American Democrat 83 (1956) (1838)

“A very wise father once remarked, that in the government of his children, he forbade as few things as possible; a wise legislation would do the same. It is folly to make laws on subjects beyond human prerogative, knowing that in the very nature of things they must be set aside. To make laws that man can not and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt. It is very important in a republic, that the people should respect the laws, for if we throw them to the winds, what becomes of civil government?” – Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Address before 10th National Woman’s rights Convention, New York, May 1860, in History of Woman Suffrage 1:716, 721 (Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda J. Gage eds. 1881)

“The words which are criticized as dirty [in James Joyce’s Ulysses] are old Saxon words known to almost all men and, I venture, to many women, and are such words as would be naturally and habitually used, I believe, by the types of folk whose life, physical, and mental, Joyce is seeking to describe. In respect of the recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds of his characters, it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season spring.” – John M. Woolsey, United States v. One Book Called “Ulysses,” 5 F. Supp. 182, 183-84 (S.D.N.Y. 1933)

[Standard for obscenity:]” Whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest.” – William J. Brennan, Jr. Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 489 (1957)

“I have reached the conclusion . . . that under the First and Fourteenth Amendments criminal laws in this area [obscenity] are constitutionally limited to hard-core pornography. I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know if when I see it; and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.” – Potter Stewart, Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 197 (1964) (concurring)

“The First Amendment guarantees liberty of human expression in order to preserve in our Nation what Mr. Justice Holmes called a “free trade in ideas.” To that end, the Constitution protects more than just a man’s freedom to say or write or publish what he wants. It secures as well the liberty of each man to decide for himself what he will read and to what he will listen. The Constitution guarantees, in short, a society of free choice.” – Potter Stewart, Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629, 649 (1968) (concurring)

“The term “f—–g pigs” in the context in which it was used referred not to copulation of porcine animals but was rather a highly insulting epithet directed to the police officers…..Appellant’s use of the vulgarism describing the filial partner in an oedipal relationship is fairly to be viewed as an epithet rather than as a phrase appealing to a shameful or morbid interest in intra-family sex….There is, after all, a strong possibility that an expert witness called in the matter before us might have testified to the occasional use of the offending profane adjective in bar association quarters or in trial judges’ lounges-alas, all too often in reference to a decision of the Court of Appeal.” – Robert S. Thompson, People v. Price, 4 Cal. App. 3d 941, 948-49, 84 Cal. Rptr. 585 (1970) (dissenting)

“I put sixteen years into that damn obscenity thing. I tried and I tried, and I waffled back and forth, and I finally gave up. If you can’t define it, you can’t prosecute people for it. And that’s why, in the Paris Adult Theatre decision, I finally abandoned the whole effort. I reached the conclusion that every criminal-obscenity statute-and most obscenity laws are criminal-was necessarily unconstitutional, because it was impossible, from the statute, to define obscenity. Accordingly, anybody charged with violating the statute would not have known that his conduct was a violation of the law. He wouldn’t know whether the material was obscene until the court told him.” – William J. Brennan, Jr., quoted in Nat Hentoff, “Profiles: The Constitutionalist,” New Yorker, 12 Mar. 1990, at 45, 56

“The appellant has attempted to distinguish the factual situation in this case from that in Renfroe v. Higgins Rack Coating and Manufacturing Co., Inc. (1969), 17 Mich App 259. He didn’t. We couldn’t. Affirmed. Costs to appellee.” All concurred.* – John H. Gillis, Denny v. Radar Industries, 28 Mich. App. 294, 294 (1970) * This is the opinion in its entirety.

“Literary license allows an avid alliterationist authority to postulate parenthetically that the predominating principles presented here may be summarized thusly: Preventing public pollution permits promiscuous perusal of personality but persistent perspicacious patron persuasively provided pertinent perdurable preponderating presumption precedent preventing prison.” – H. Sol Clark, Banks v. State, 132 Ga. App. 809, 810, 209 S.E. 2d 252 (1974)

“Our amended Constitution is the lodestar for our aspirations. Like every text worth reading, it is not crystalline. The phrasing is broad and the limitations of its provisions are not clearly marked. Its majestic generalities and ennobling pronouncements are both luminous and obscure. This ambiguity of course calls forth interpretation, the interaction of reader and text. The encounter with the Constitutional text has been, in many senses, my life’s work.” – William J. Brennan, Jr., “The Constitution of the United States: Contemporary Ratification” (speech), Washington, D.C. 12 Oct. 1985, in Original Meaning Jurisprudence: A Sourcebook 151, 152 (1987)

“I, Andrew Johnson, …..hereby proclaim and declare unconditionally, and without reservation, to all and to every person who directly or indirectly participated in the late insurrection or rebellion, a full pardon and amnesty for the offence of treason against the United States, or of adhering to their enemies during the late civil war, with restoration of all rights, privileges, and immunities under the Constitution and the laws which have been made in pursuance thereof.” – Proclamation 25 Dec., 1868, 15 Stat. 711, 712

“The patent system…added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius.” – Abraham Lincoln, Second Lecture on Discoveries and Inventions, Jacksonville, Ill., 11 Feb.1859, in Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 3:363 (Roy P. Basler ed. 1953)

[To the Court requesting a precedent for his position during the Crafts trial:] “I will look, your Honor, and endeavor to find a precedent, if you require it; though it would seem to be a pity that the Court should lose the honor of being the first to establish so just a rule.” – Rufus Choate, quoted in Works of Rufus Choate 1:292 (Samuel G. Brown ed. 1862)

“We recognize that stare decisis embodies an important social policy. It represents an element of continuity in law, and is rooted in the psychologic need to satisfy reasonable expectations. But stare decisis is a principle of policy and not a mechanical formula of adherence to the latest decision, however recent and questionable, when such adherence involves collision with a prior doctrine more embracing in its scope, intrinsically sounder, and verified by experience…This Court, unlike the House of Lords, has from the beginning rejected a doctrine of disability at self-correction.” – Felix Frankfurter, Helvering v. Hallock, 309 U.S. 106, 119, 121 (1940)

“I would rather create a precedent than find one.” – William O. Douglas, The Court Years: 1939-1975, at 179 (1980)

“The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom.” – William O. Douglas, Public Utilities Comm’n v. Pollak, 343 U.S. 451, 467 (1952) (dissenting)

“We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; where there are no secrets from government.” – William O. Douglas, Osborn v. United States, 385 U.S. 323, 341 (1966) (dissenting)

“In no country in the world is the love of property more active and more anxious than in the United States; nowhere does the majority display less inclination for those principles which threaten to alter, in whatever manner, the laws of property.” – Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America 2:314 (Francis Bowen trans.1862) (1835)

“Any person who is the head of a family, or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years, and is a citizen of the United States, or who shall have filed his declaration of intention to become such, as required by the naturalization laws of the United States, and who has never borne arms against the United States Government or given aid and comfort to its enemies, shall, from and after the first January, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, be entitled to enter one quarter section or a less quantity of unappropriated public lands, upon which said person may have filed a preemption claim, or which may, at the time the application is made, be subject to preemption at one dollar and twenty-five cents, or less, per acre; or eighty acres or less of such unappropriated lands, at two dollars and fifty cents per acre, to be located in a body, in conformity to the legal subdivisions of the public lands, and after the same shall have been surveyed.” – Homestead Act of 1862, ch. 75, § 1, 12 Stat. 392, 392

“With the rise of property, considered as an institution, with the settlement of its rights, and, above all, with the established certainty of its transmission to lineal descendants, came the first possibility among mankind of the true family in its modern acceptation. . . It is impossible to separate property, considered in the concrete, from civilization, or for civilization to exist without its presence, protection, and regulated inheritance. Of property in this sense, all barbarous nations are necessarily ignorant.” – Lewis Henry Morgan, Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity 492 (1870)

“The primary duty of a lawyer engaged in public prosecution is not to convict, but to see that justice is done.” – Canons of Professional Ethics Canon 5 (1908)

[William Jennings Bryan:] “Your Honor, I think I can shorten this testimony. The only purpose Mr. Darrow has is to slur at the Bible, but I will answer his question. I will answer it all at once, and I have no objection in the world, I want the world to know that this man, who does not believe in a God, is trying to use a court in Tennessee-” [Clarence S. Darrow:]” I object to that.” [Bryan:]” to slur at it, and while it will require time, I am willing to take it.” [Darrow:] “I object to your statement. I am exempting you on your fool ideas that no intelligent Christian on earth believes.” – Clarence S. Darrow, Scopes Trial, Dayton, Tenn., 20 July 1925, in The World’s Most Famous Court Trial 304 (1925)

“Men may believe what they cannot prove. They may not be put to the proof of their religious doctrines or beliefs. Religious experiences which are as real as life to some may be incomprehensible to others.” – William O. Douglas, United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78, 86 (1944)

“Among religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism and others.” – Hugo L. Black, Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488, 495 n.11 (1961)

“This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember, or overthrow it.” – Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1861, in Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln 4:269 (Roy P. Basler ed. 1953)

“The word “revolution” has of course acquired a subversive connotation in modern times. But it has roots that are eminently respectable in American history. This country is the product of revolution. Our very being emphasizes that when grievances pile high and there are no political remedies, the exercise of sovereign powers reverts to the people. Teaching and espousing revolution-as distinguished from indulging in overt acts-are therefore obviously within the range of the First Amendment. ” – William O. Douglas, W.E.B. Du Bois Clubs v. Clark, 389 U.S. 309, 315-16 (1967)

“If we cannot secure all our rights, let us secure what we can.” – Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison, 15 Mar. 1789, in Papers of Thomas Jefferson 14:660 (Julian P. Boyd ed. 1958)

“But the word “right” is one of the most deceptive of pitfalls; it is so easy to slip from a qualified meaning in the premise to an unqualified one in the conclusion. Most rights are qualified. ” – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., American Bank and Trust Co. v. Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, 256 U.S. 350, 358 (1921)

“This freedom of movement is the very essence of our free society, setting us apart. Like the right of assembly and the right of association, it often makes all other rights meaningful-knowing, studying, arguing, exploring, conversing, observing and even thinking. Once the right to travel is curtailed, all other rights suffer, just as when curfew or home detention is placed on a person.” – William O. Douglas, Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U.S. 500, 520 (1964) (concurring)

“America is of course sovereign; but her sovereignty is woven in an international web that makes her one of the family of nations. The ties with all the continents are close-commercially as well as culturally. Our concerns are planetary, beyond sunrises and sunsets. Citizenship implicates us in those problems and perplexities, as well as in domestic ones. We cannot exercise and enjoy citizenship in world perspective without the right to travel abroad; and I see no constitutional way to curb it unless, as I said, there is the power to detain.” – William O. Douglas, Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U.S. 500, 520-21 (1964) (concurring)

“Of course, I believe that every child has a right to decent education and shelter, food and medical care; of course, I believe that refugees from political oppression have a right to a haven in a free land; of course I believe that every person has a right to work in dignity and for a decent wage. I do believe and affirm the social contract that grounds these rights. But more to the point I also believe that I am commanded-that we are obligated-to realize those rights.” – Robert M. Cover, “Obligation: A Jewish Jurisprudence of the Social Order,” 5 Journal of Law and Religion 65, 73-74 (1988)

“And I take this opportunity to declare, that …I will to my dying day oppose, with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand, and villainy on the other, as this writ of assistance is. It appears to me…the worst instrument of arbitrary power, the most destructive of English liberty, and the fundamental principles of the constitution, that ever was found in an English law-book.” – James Otis, Argument against the writs of assistance, Boston, Feb. 1761, quoted in John Adams, “Abstract of the Argument for and against the Writts of Assistance,” 1761, in Legal Papers of John Adams 2:134, 139-40 (L. Kinvin Wroth and Hiller B. Zobel eds. 1965)

“Your Honours will find in the old book, concerning the office of a justice of peace, precedents of general warrants to search suspected houses. But in more modern books you will find only special warrants to search such and such houses specially named, in which the complainant has before sworn he suspects his goods are concealed; and you will find it adjudged that special warrants only are legal. In the same manner I rely on it, that the writ prayed for in this petition being general is illegal. It is a power that places the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer.” – James Otis, Argument against the writs of assistance, Boston, Feb. 1761, quoted in John Adams, “Abstract of the Argument for and against the Writts of Assistance,” 1761, in Legal Papers of John Adams 2:134, 141-42 (L. Kinvin Wroth and Hiller B. Zobel eds. 1965)

“Now one of the most essential branches of English liberty, is the freedom of one’s house. A man’s house is his castle;* and while he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ [of assistance], if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this privilege.” – James Otis, Argument against the writs of assistance, Boston, Feb. 1761, quoted in John Adams, “Abstract of the Argument for and against the Writts of Assistance,” 1761, in Legal Papers of John Adams 2:134; 142 (L. Kinvin Wroth and Hiller B. Zobel eds. 1965) *Burton Stevenson, Home Book of Proverbs, Maxims and Familiar Phrases 1192 (1948), traces the proverb, “A man’s house is his castle,” back to 1567 and notes legal usages of it by Sir Edward Coke in the 17th century.

“That general warrants, whereby an officer of messenger may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of a fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, or whose offence is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are grievous and oppressive, and ought not to be granted.” – Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776, § 10, in Federal and State Constitutions 7:3812, 3814 (Francis N. Thorpe ed. 1909)

It shall be unlawful for any person, directly or indirectly, by the use of any means or instrumentality of interstate commerce, or of the mails… (A) To employ any device, scheme, or artifice to defraud, (B) To make any untrue statement of a material fact or to omit to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading, or (C) To engage in any act, practice, or course of business which operates or would operate as a fraud or deceit upon any person, in connection with the purchase or sale of any security. – Rule 10b-5,13 Fed. Reg. 8183-84 (1948) (codified at 17 C.F.R. § 240.10b-5)

[Definition of insider trading:] “Stealing too fast.” – Calvin Trillin, “The Inside on Insider Trading,” in If You Can’t Say Something Nice 141, 143 (1987)

“He must make instant decisions that would take months for a lawyer.” – Paul Harvey, on policemen

“Racial discrimination in public education is unconstitutional…..All provisions of federal, state or local law requiring or permitting such discrimination must yield to this principle. – Earl Warren, Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U.S. 294, 298 (1955)

“The hardest case we ever heard of lived in Arkansas. He was only fourteen years old. One night he deliberately murdered his father and mother in cold blood, with a meat-axe. He was tried and found guilty. The Judge drew on his black cap, and in a voice choked with emotion asked the young prisoner if he had anything to say before the sentence of the Court was passed on him….”Why, no,” replied the prisoner, “I think I haven’t, though I hope yer Honor will show some consideration FOR THE FEELINGS OF A POOR ORPHAN!” ” – Artemus Ward, “A Hard Case,” in Artemus Ward in London 183, 183-84 (1867)

“I’m often asked why there is such a great variation among sentences imposed by Texas judges. I can only quote the Texas judge who was asked why a killer sometimes doesn’t even get indicted and a cattle thief can get ten years. The judge answered: “A lot of fellows ought to be shot, but we don’t have any cows that need stealin’.” – Pearcy Foreman, quoted in Michael Dorman, King of the Courtroom 104 (1969)

“Oyez, oyez, oyez! All persons having business before the honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States, are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the court is now sitting. God save the United States and this honorable Court.” – Marshal’s cry at the opening of public sessions of the United States Supreme Court

“Equal Justice Under Law.” – Inscription on West Portico of Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C.

“Justice the Guardian of Liberty.” – Inscription on East Portico of Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C. Court

“[We’ll] never really know how many brothers-in-law were ‘accidentally kilt’ by their kin who were holding their shotgun and stepping over a fence at the same time.” – Robert Meriweather, Professor of Political Science, Education and History and Dean of Students at Hendrix College (1959-1993)

“Knowing Master Huckaback to be a man of his word, as well as one who would have others so, I was careful to be in good time the next morning . . . “

– R.D. Blackmore, Lorna Doone

“Justice the Guardian of Liberty.” – Inscription on East Portico of Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C.

“Anything less than full justice is cruelty.”

– William Penn

“Your brand is your promise to the consumer. It’s your reputation. It’s the encapsulation of your core values. . .When someone attempts to steal our brand it’s personal, as though some part of my family has been assaulted.”

– Doug Shafer, A Vineyard In Napa

Here this extraordinary man [Charles Townsend], then Chancellor of the Exchequer, found himself in great straits. To please universally was the object of his life; but to tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men. However, he attempted it.

– Edmund Burke, Speech on American Taxation, 19 April 1774, in Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke 2:409, 454 (Paul Langford ed. 1981)

“Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.*” – Benjamin Franklin, Letter to Jean Baptiste Le Roy, 13 Nov. 1789, in Writings of Benjamin Franklin 10:69 (Albert H. Smyth ed. 1907) *Not the man in the moon, not the groaning-board, not the speaking of friar Bacon’s brazen- head, not the inspiration of mother Shipton, or the miracles of Dr. Faustus, things as certain as death and taxes, can be more firmly believed. – Daniel Defoe, The History of the Devil, 1726, in Defoe’s Works 3:283, 481 (1912)

“I don’t see why a man shouldn’t pay an inheritance tax. If a Country is good enough to pay taxes to while you are living, it’s good enough to pay in after you die. By the time you die you should be so used to paying taxes that it would just be almost second nature to you.” – Will Rogers, “They’ve Got a New Dictionary at Ellis Island,” 28 Feb. 1926, in Will Rogers’ Weekly Articles 2:157, 158 (James M. Smallwood ed. 1980)

[Responding to a statement that “laws should be considerate of the poor”:] Not more so than of the rich. The laws should be equal and just; and the poor are the last people who ought to wish them otherwise, since they are certain to be the losers when any other principle governs….No class suffers so much by a departure from the rule, as the rich have a thousand other means of attaining their ends, when the way is left clear to them, by setting up any other master than the right.” – James Fenimore Cooper, The Chainbearer, 1845, in Complete Works of J. Fenimore Cooper 27:94-95 (1893)

“The true form of the Rule against Perpetuities is believed to be this: – NO INTEREST SUBJECT TO A CONDITION PRECEDENT IS GOOD, UNLESS THE CONDITION MUST BE FULFILLED, IF AT ALL, WITHIN TWENTY-ONE YEARS AFTER SOME LIFE IN BEING AT THE CREATION OF THE INTEREST.” – John Chipman Gray, The Rule Against Perpetuities 144 (1886)

“During my life, and now by my will and codicils, I have given considerable sums of money to promote public or humanitarian causes which have had my deliberate and sympathetic interest. If any of my children think excessive such gifts of mine outside of my family, I ask them to remember not only the merit of the causes and the corresponding usefulness of the gifts but also the dominating ideals of my life. They should never forget the dangers which unfortunately attend the inheritance of large fortunes, even though the money come from the painstaking affections of a father. I beg of them to remember that such danger lies not only in the obvious temptation to enervating luxury, but in the inducement . . . to withdraw from the wholesome duty of vigorous, serious, useful work. In my opinion a life not largely dedicated to such work cannot be happy and honorable; And to such it is my earnest hope-and will be to my death-that my children shall, so far as their strength permits, be steadfastly devoted.” – Joseph Pulitzer, Will, in James Wyman Barrett, Joseph Pulitzer and His World 295-96 (1941)

“And do as adversaries do in law – Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.” – William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, act I, scene ii

“Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, a river of righteous living that will never run dry.” – The Holy Bible – Amos 5:24

“In the heart of every lawyer, worthy of the name, there burns a deep ambition so to bear himself that the profession may be stronger by reason of his passage through its ranks, and that he may leave the law itself a better instrument of human justice than he found it.” – John W. Davis

“I do solemnly swear or affirm: I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Arkansas, and I will faithfully perform the duties of attorney at law. I will maintain the respect and courtesy due to courts of justice, judicial officers, and those who assist them. I will, to the best of my ability, abide by the Model Rules of Professional Conduct and any other standards of ethics proclaimed by the courts, and in doubtful cases I will attempt to abide by the spirit of those ethical rules and precepts of honor and fair play. To opposing parties and their counsel, I pledge fairness, integrity, and civility, not only in court, but also in all written and oral communications. I will not reject, from any consideration personal to myself, the cause of the impoverished, the defenseless, or the oppressed. I will endeavor always to advance the cause of justice and to defend and to keep inviolate the rights of all persons whose trust is conferred upon me as an attorney at law.”

– Oath administered to new attorneys in Arkansas

“We will either find a way, or make one.” – Hannibal

“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” – Albert Einstein

“I have lived my life, and I have fought my battles, not against the weak and the poor – anybody can do that – but against power, against injustice, against oppression, and I have asked no odds from them, and I never shall.” – Clarence S. Darrow, Defense against charge of jury bribing in McNamara Case, 1912, in Attorney for the Damned 491, 497 (Arthur Weinberg ed. 1957)

“We cannot not be here. People look to us.” -Mari Wright, Executive Director of the Southwest Georgia Chapter of the American Red Cross.

“The law favors farmers.” – an old folk saying

“…There nothing more expensive than a bad lawyer”. -Mike Gowen

Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters. – Albert Einstein

In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning people are all the same. – Albert Einstein

“It’s never about the opponent or who we’re facing. . . . Coach likes to say they’re faceless – and they are. It’s about us and about what we do and how we take everything on the field. It doesn’t matter who we play. We’re trying to play the way we’re capable of playing.”

– Alabama senior quarterback AJ McCarron, quoting Coach Nick Saban

Men of few words are the best men. – William Shakespeare

This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read. – Sir Winston Churchhill

I have made this [letter] longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter. – French writer and mathematician Blaise Pascal

Funny Order from Kenton, KY Circuit Court – Click to download PDF

“[W]hat many of those who oppose the use of juries in civil trials seem to ignore [is that t]he founders of our Nation considered the right of trial by jury in civil cases an important bulwark against tyranny and corruption, a safeguard too precious to be left to the whim of the sovereign, or, it might be added, to that of the judiciary.” – Chief Justice William Rehnquist in Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore, 439 U.S. 322, 343 (1979)

“Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.” – Thomas Babington Macaulay

“There was not a member of the Constitutional Convention who had the least objection to what is contended for by the advocates for a Bill of Rights and trial by jury.” – George Washington (1788)

“It is through trial by jury that the people share in government, a consideration which ought to make our legislators very cautious how they take away this mode of trial by new, trifling and vexatious enactments.” – Lord John Russell, Prime Minister of England (1823)

“What individual can so well assess the amount of damages which a plaintiff ought to recover for an injury he has received than an intelligent jury?” – Henry Peter Brougham, Lord Chancellor of England (1828)

“The law of England has established trial by judge and jury in the conviction that it is the mode best calculated to ascertain the truth.” – Jeremy Bentham, English Philosopher (1832)

“The civil jury is the most effective form of sovereignty of the people. It defies the aggressions of time and man. During the reigns of Henry VIII (1509-1547) and Elizabeth I (1158-1603), the civil jury did in reality save the liberties of England.” – Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835)

“The jury system is the handmaid of freedom. It takes on the spirit of liberty, and grows with the progress of constitutional government. Rome, Sparta and Carthage fell because they did not know it, let not England and America fall because they threw it away.” – Charles S. May, Address to the Michigan Law School (1875)

“In the Declaration of Independence, the King of Great Britain was arraigned before the world for depriving us of trial by jury. This language evinces the purpose of our representatives to risk their lives and their fortunes to secure the ancient right of trial by jury.” – Justice Alphonso C. Avery of North Carolina (1892)

“In the jury box, no less than in the polling booth, every day the American way of life is given its rebirth. American jurymen are the custodians and guarantors of the democratic ideal.” – Justice Bernard Botein of New York (1946)

“The more I see of trial by judge, the more highly I think of trial by jury.” – Australian King’s Counsel B. R. Wise (1948)

“Through 500 years of human history the jury trial has been regarded as an unalienable right cherished in the thinking of freedom-seeking peoples. It remains today a refuse against all those little tyrannies plotted behind hypocritical fronts in well-respected places theoretically dedicated to the preservation of basic civil liberties.” – Judge William J. Palmer of California (1958)

“In the minds of American colonists, trial by jury was the firmest barrier of English liberty; it survives today as the voice of the people.” – Arthur Schlesinger, The Birth of the Nation (1968)

“The most persistent hate is that which doth degenerate from love.” – Map, De Nugis Curialium, 245

“[N]o man’s life, liberty or fortune is safe while the legislature is in session.” – Benjamin Franklin

“The right of trial by jury in civil cases is fundamental to our history and jurisprudence. The founders of our nation considered it an important bulwark against tyranny and corruption, a safeguard too precious to be left to the whim of the sovereign.”

– U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist (1979)

“The concept of the jury system is as close as any society has ever come to true democracy.” -Paula Di Perna, Faces of American Justice (1984)

“Plaintiff respectfully demands trial by jury and tenders the required jury fee”. – Non-parenthetical requirement in every complaint alleging personal injury or wrongful death, Law Offices of Gary Green

“A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.” – Robert Frost Taken from: http://ggreen.com/just-for-fun/famous-quotes-in-law