Clerks Quote by William J. Brennan

“Clerks get into the damnedest wrangles--which is the way they help me.”

William J. Brennan

About This Quote

Source Court Opinion: “Brennan on Clerks”, 1975

Clerks’ disputes provide him with insight and perspective.

In simple terms: Legal disputes teach valuable lessons.

Key Takeaway

Learn from conflicts.

Themes

law conflict learning

Mood

analytical reflective

Type

legal educational

When to use this quote

courtroom debates
legal education
professional development

Key Concepts

judicial reasoning case analysis

Questions to Reflect On

What can be learned from a specific case?
How to extract value from conflict?

A Different Perspective

Not all disputes are constructive.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 2.7 out of 5 (9 ratings)

Clerks Clerks Damnedest Damnedest Damnedest Wrangles Help me Helping Way Way Help Wrestling

More by William J. Brennan

If our free society is to endure, those who govern must recognize human dignity and accept the enforcement of constitutional limitations on their power…

William J. Brennan

Image

Capital punishment...treats members of the human race...as objects to be toyed with and discarded.

William J. Brennan

Image

Debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust and wide-open and that...may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and…

William J. Brennan

Image

The modern public school derived from a philosophy of freedom reflected in the First Amendment ... The non-sectarian or secular public school was the…

William J. Brennan

Image

If a policeman must know the Constitution, then why not a planner?

William J. Brennan

Image

Our statute books gradually became laden with gross, stereotyped distinctions between the sexes and, indeed, throughout much of the 19th century the position of…

William J. Brennan

Image

We cannot let colorblindness become myopia which masks the reality that many "created equal" have been treated within our lifetimes as inferior both by…

William J. Brennan

Image

After each perceived security crisis ended, the United States has remorsefully realized that the abrogation of civil liberties was unnecessary.

William J. Brennan

Image

The door of the Free Exercise Clause stands tightly closed against any government regulation of religious beliefs as such. Government may neither compel affirmation…

William J. Brennan

Image

One area of law more than any other besmirches the constitutional vision of human dignity. . . . The barbaric death penalty violates our…

William J. Brennan

Image

“Thus, we consider this case against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited,…

William J. Brennan

Image

Whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest.

William J. Brennan

Image

Explore all 43 William J. Brennan quotes

More Clerks quotes

Gonna rain like a cow pissin' on a flat rock" [drugstore clerk to detective Virgil Flowers] Dark of the Moon, p.7

John Sandford

Image

I like to change liquor stores frequently because the clerks got to know your habits if you went in night and day and bought…

Charles Bukowski

Image

My dad was a bartender. My mom was a cashier, a maid and a stock clerk at K-Mart. They never made it big. They…

Marco Rubio

Image

My law clerks come from diverse backgrounds and points of view.

Brett Kavanaugh

Image

I do not rule Russia: ten thousand clerks do.

Anonymous

Image

I am proud that a majority of my law clerks have been women.

Brett Kavanaugh

Image

I had a lot of jobs, because I wanted to be an actor, and I had this bad habit of wanting to eat regularly.…

Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs

Image

Corporate types love to pretend their life is exciting. The whispers, fist-pumping and animated hand gestures are all designed to lift our job description…

Chetan Bhagat