I am pleading for the future; I am pleading for a time when hatred and cruelty will not control the hearts of men. When we can learn by, reason and judgment and understanding and faith that all life is worth saving, and that mercy is the highest attribute of man.

Do I need to argue to Your Honor that cruelty only breeds cruelty? That hatred only causes hatred; that if there is any way to soften this human heart which is hard enough at its best, if there is any way to kill evil and hatred and all that goes with it, it is not through evil and hatred and cruelty; it is through charity, and love, and understanding?

Never forget, almost every case has been won or lost when the jury is sworn.

Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt.

We are turning our prisons into living tombs, inhabited by doomed men living in everlasting blank despair.

Education was in danger from the source that always hampered it—religious fanaticism.

Punishment as punishment is not admissible unless the offender has had the freewill to select his course.