Alan Quotes

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

I was a Jewish rabbinical student for 12 years, and studied the Bible all the time.

I understand that it's good tactics to categorize me as a close-minded, unobjective extremist, but nobody that respects me has those views.

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

The Internet knows no national borders.

I love to play. I love, opera, hiking and museums. The one thing I don't do is sit. I have a tremendous amount of energy.

Any human being has private thoughts.

Ideas don't desert you; ideas aren't treasonous to you, but people can be.

I learn from experience.

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

I never place limits on the potential success of my students. If they're going into acting, they're going to win the Oscar... If they're going into law, they're going to be chief justice.

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.

Who you truly are is a place of no particular thing, but all things at once.

Yoga is when you feel pure consciousness and spirit.

Whatever fells your mind is what you are. So, feel loving and peaceful for no reason at all.