Alan Dershowitz Quotes

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

I am a peace supporting Jew.

Israel and the Palestinians must resolve their own differences. The United States can play an important role as facilitator and guarantor.

Accusations fit on Greenwald really sounds like he's against all surveillance unless you can find a guy with the Al Qaeda card, wearing an Al Qaeda baseball cap, an Al Qaeda uniform.

The struggle for morality never stays won. It's always in process.

Well, many insane people and seriously mentally ill people seem very reasonable.

I've thought of publishing a book of my hate mail, but I don't own the rights to the letters.

A good lawyer knows how to shut up when he's won his case.

A state has the right to prohibit the killing of dogs and bears whether for film or for other purposes.

It's every lawyer's dream to help shape the law, not just react to it.

Well, first of all, no professor should be able to say, I refuse to defend my position. I refuse to debate my position.

Imagine a legal system in which lawyers were equated with the clients they defended and were condemned for representing controversial or despised clients.

That's when civil liberty suffers - when we think special times justify the diminution of civil liberties. And I'm not going to accept that.

It's a new phenomenon in America that states can now sue the national government and become a kind of check and balance on the excesses of the federal government.

In my neighborhood, everyone had an opinion on the local cantor. You didn't go to a synagogue to listen to the rabbi's sermon. You went to listen to the cantor. It was like a concert.

The Second Amendment has no place in modern society.

There is no perfect justice, just as there is no absolute in ethics. But there is perfect injustice, and we know it when we see it.

The first rule for escaping prison in the United States is always having someone more important than yourself to incriminate.

When you discriminate against anyone, you discriminate against everyone. It's a display of terrible intolerance.

I'm not a single-issue person, but I spend so much time on Israel because it is so unfairly condemned around the world.

Nobody wants justice.

African-Americans are as fair as any other group, but they bring their life experiences to bear as just as whites bring their experiences to bear.

I've had such a satisfying life professionally and personally. I hope my tombstone says, 'Never boring.'

Scientists search for truth. Philosophers search for morality. A criminal trial searches for only one result: proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Such technological tools ... are helping us now in the hot war against terrorists who would bomb this theater if they had the capacity to do so.

The vast majority of gun owners don't kill, but people who do kill, tend to kill with guns, and often with illegal guns.

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

Laws are important precisely because in a democracy they reflect the attitudes and aspirations of those they govern.

When I was 14 or 15, a camp counselor told me I was smart. I had never been very good in school, but he told me once that I was smart but my mind operated a little differently.

I think we're seeing privacy diminish, not by laws... but by young people who don't seem to value their privacy.

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

There’s simply nothing in there that would justify second degree murder.

This is not about celebrity justice, this is about the rights of the children.

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

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

A criminal trial is never about seeking justice for the victim. If it were, there could be only one verdict: guilty.

There's no evidence that I'm aware of that guns protect liberty.

Bigotry against any group should be disqualifying for high office.

Judges are the weakest link in our system of justice, and they are also the most protected.

The same independence that got me into trouble in high school got me praise in college.

Real heroes are those who face death for a principle - say, to save the lives of others - without any promise of reward.

Juries are not computers. They are composed of human beings who evaluate evidence differently.

For something to be a crime there must be both an actus reus and mens rea — that is, a criminal act accompanied by a criminal state of mind.