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Scout, simply by the nature of the work, every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally. This one’s mine, I guess. You might hear some ugly talk about it at school, but do one thing for me if you will: you just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don’t you let ‘em get your goat.

- Atticus Finch
  • You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.
  • The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.
  • First of all, if you learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.
  • Scout, simply by the nature of the work, every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally. This one’s mine, I guess. You might hear some ugly talk about it at school, but do one thing for me if you will: you just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don’t you let ‘em get your goat.
  • I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.
  • How could they do it, how could they?
  • Jem, see if you can stand in Bob Ewell’s shoes a minute. I destroyed his last shred of credibility at that trial, if he had any to begin with. The man had to have some kind of comeback, his kind always does. So if spitting in my face and threatening me saved Mayella Ewell one extra beating, that’s something I’ll gladly take.
  • Those are twelve reasonable men in everyday life, Tom’s jury, but you saw something come between them and reason. You saw the same thing that night in front of the jail. When that crew went away, they didn’t go as reasonable men, they went because we were there. There’s something in our world that makes men lose their heads—they couldn’t be fair if they tried.
  • That was the one thing that made me think, well, this may be the shadow of a beginning. That jury took a few hours. An inevitable verdict, maybe, but usually it takes ‘em just a few minutes.
  • You may be sorry, but I’m proud of you.
  • Well, I certainly hoped a daughter of mine’d hold her ground for what she thinks is right—stand up to me first of all.
  • As you say, Jean Louise, there’s only one thing higher than the Court in this country, and that’s the Constitution.
  • The only remedy for this is not to let it beat you.
  • The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.
  • Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.
  • Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself.
  • You just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don’t you let ‘em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change.
  • Best way to clear the air is to have it all out in the open.
  • This time we aren’t fighting the Yankees, we’re fighting our friends. But remember this, no matter how bitter things get, they’re still our friends and this is still our home.
  • Are you proud of yourself tonight that you have insulted a total stranger whose circumstances you know nothing about?
  • Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.
  • There’s a lot of ugly things in this world, son. I wish I could keep ‘em all away from you. That’s never possible.
  • But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal- there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution gentlemen, is a court. It can be the Supreme Court of the United States or the humblest JP court in the land, or this honourable court which you serve. Our courts have their faults as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal.
  • Our courts have their faults as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal.
  • When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness’ sake. But don’t make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles ‘em.
  • It’s not time to worry yet...
  • The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box.
  • As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it - whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.
  • Jem, see if you can stand in Bob Ewell’s shoes a minute. I destroyed his last shred of credibility at that trial, if he had any to begin with. The man had to have some kind of comeback, his kind always does. So if spitting in my face and threatening me saved Mayella Ewell one extra beating, that’s something I’ll gladly take
  • It’s never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn’t hurt you.
  • So it took an eight-year-old child to bring ‘em to their senses...That proves something - that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they’re still human. Hmp, maybe we need a police force of children.
  • Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they’re not attracting attention with it.
  • You children made Walter Cunningham stand in my shoes for a minute. That was enough.
  • Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I’ve tried to live so I can look squarely back at him.
  • the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men are not to be trusted around women—black or white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men.
  • there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire.
  • Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don’t pretend to understand.

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