| Quote | Author | Source | Email Quote |
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| "Once or twice in my career I feel that I have done more real harm by my discovery of the criminal than ever he had done by his crime. I have learned caution now, and I had rather play tricks with the law of England than with my own conscience." | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | The Adventure of Abbey Grange |  |
| No public business of any kind could possibly be done at any time without the acquiescence of the Circumlocution Office. Its finger was in the largest public pie, and in the smallest public tart. | Charles Dickens | Little Dorrit | |
| "If the law supposes that,' said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, "the law is a ass--a idiot. If that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience--by experience." | Charles Dickens | Oliver Twist | |
| "Circumstances may accumulate so strongly even against an innocent man, that directed, sharpened, and pointed, they may slay him." | Charles Dickens | The Mystery of Edwin Drood | |
| So, Mr. Chadband--of whom the persecutors say that it is no wonder he should go on for any length of time uttering such abominable nonsense, but that the wonder rather is that he should ever leave off, having once the audacity to begin--retires into private life until he invests a little capital of supper in the oil-trade. | Charles Dickens | Bleak House | |
| The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings. | Charles Dickens | Bleak House | |
| "What lawsuits grow out of the graves of rich men, every day; sowing perjury, hatred, and lies among near kindred, where there should be nothing but love!" | Charles Dickens | Martin Chuzzlewit | |
| "Every man should have laws of his own, I should think; commandments of his own, for every man has a different set of circumstances wherein to work--or worry." | Gilbert Parker | The Translation of a Savage | |
| "Nothing is so unproductive as the law. It is expensive whether you win or lose . . . " | Gilbert Parker | The Money Master | |
| You can hire logic, in the shape of a lawyer, to prove anything that you want to prove. | Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. | The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table | |
| To see both sides is indeed the requisite of a great lawyer, but to see the opposite side only in order to win, as in looking over an opponent's hand in a game of cards. | Charles Dudley Warner | That Fortune | |
| For, according to our old saying, the three learned professions live by roguery on the three parts of a man. The doctor mauls our bodies; the parson starves our souls, but the lawyer must be the adroitest knave, for he has to ensnare our minds. | R. D. Blackmore | Lorna Doone | |
| "Circumstantial evidence," continued the young man, as if he scarcely heard Lady Audley's interruption—"that wonderful fabric which is built out of straws collected at every point of the compass, and which is yet strong enough to hang a man." | Mary Elizabeth Braddon | Lady Audley's Secret | |
| "Like the British Constitution, she owes her success in practice to her inconsistencies in principle." | Thomas Hardy | The Hand of Ethelberta | |
| "Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing," answered Holmes thoughtfully. "It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different." | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | The Boscombe Valley Mystery | |
| "The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard's blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbors, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser." | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | The Adventure of the Copper Beeches | |
| A minute later the bailiff and four of his men rode past him on their journey back to Southampton, the other two having been chosen as grave-diggers. As they passed Alleyne saw that one of the men was wiping his sword-blade upon the mane of his horse. A deadly sickness came over him at the sight, and sitting down by the wayside he burst out weeping, with his nerves all in a jangle. It was a terrible world thought he, and it was hard to know which were the most to be dreaded, the knaves or the men of the law. | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | The White Company | |
| ". . . And when it come to character, warn't it Compeyson as had been to the school, and warn't it his schoolfellows as was in this position and in that, and warn't it him as had been know'd by witnesses in such clubs and societies, and nowt to his disadvantage? And warn't it me as had been tried afore, and as had been know'd up hill and down dale in Bridewells and Lock-Ups? And when it come to speech-making, warn't it Compeyson as could speak to 'em wi' his face dropping every now and then into his white pocket-handkercher - ah! and wi' verses in his speech, too - and warn't it me as could only say, 'Gentlemen, this man at my side is a most precious rascal'? And when the verdict come, warn't it Compeyson as was recommended to mercy on account of good character and bad company, and giving up all the information he could agen me, and warn't it me as got never a word but Guilty? . . . " | Charles Dickens | Great Expectations | |
| "Battledore and shuttlecock's a wery good game, vhen you ain't the shuttlecock and two lawyers the battledores, in which case it gets too excitin' to be pleasant." | Charles Dickens | The Pickwick Papers | |
| "Vell," said Mr. Weller, "Now I s'pose he'll want to call some witnesses to speak to his character, or p'raps to prove a alleybi. I've been a turnin' the bis'ness over in my mind, and he may make his-self easy, Sammy. I've got some friends as'll do either for him, but my adwice 'ud be this here--never mind the character, and stick to the alleybi. Nothing like a alleybi, Sammy, nothing." | Charles Dickens | The Pickwick Papers | |
