An Argument of Lawyers

I'm not sure why I started collecting these quotes. I liked Justice Breyer's Saint Peter story, and it just grew from there. Sir Thomas More was a lawyer, but saw Utopia as having no lawyers. The United States had 281 lawyers per 100,000 people in 1991, while Japan had 11. I don't have any specific grievances against lawyers. Sorry, Ben and George.

"Woe unto you also, ye lawyers!
for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne,
and ye yourselves touch not the burdens
with one of your fingers."
— Luke 11:46

"The first thing we do,
let's kill all the lawyers."
— William Shakespeare, Henry VI Part II, Act IV, Scene II

"God works wonders now and then:
Behold! A lawyer and an honest man!"
— Benjamin Franklin

"The lawyers’ truth is not Truth,
but consistency or a consistent expediency.
— Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience"

"In the heels of the higgling lawyers, Bob,
Too many slippery ifs and buts and howevers,
Too much hereinbefore provided whereas,
Too many doors to go in and out of."
— Carl Sandburg, “The Lawyers Know Too Much", Anthology of magazine verse for 1920

"Know how to save seven drowning lawyers?"
— (long silence) "No."
"Good."
— Curves of Pursuit, Thomas Farber, New York, NY: Putnam, 1984, pg. 156, but as told to me

Lawyers and Other Reptiles, a book by Jess M. Brallier (Contemporary Books, 1992)

Remember the story of the young lawyer, felled by a heart attack, who complained to Saint Peter,
  “How could you take me? I’m only thirty.”
  “Well,” Saint Peter replied, “I looked at your billing records and thought you must be 95.”
— Stephen Breyer, Supreme Court of the United States, “The Legal Profession and Public Service”, Gauer Distinguished Lecture in Law and Public Policy, September 12, 2000

“Hey you scummers,
we got a cheap lawyer and
we're no' afraid tae use him!"
― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men, 2003