Word Gravel

"When it comes to plain talk, lawyers are the worst.  Most speak and write as if they live in a repository for dead bodies.  When they write briefs that some poor trapped judge must read, they fill them with heavy, gray, lifeless, disgustingly boring word gravel — piles of it, tons of it.  When I read most briefs I want to scream.  I want to throw the brief out the window and jump.  If I could find the author, and had the power, I would make the villain eat the thing a page at a time, without salt or catsup."

Gerry Spence, Esq., How to Argue and Win Every Time  (New York:  St. Martins, 1995), p. 104-105.

Fanaticism in Religion, Philanthropy, and Sports

"The fierciest fanatics are often selfish people who were forced, by innate shortcomings or external circumstances, to lose faith in their own selves.  They separate the excellent instrument of their selfishness from their own ineffectual selves and attach it to the serviceof some holy cause.  And though it be a faith of love and humility they adopt, they can be neither loving nor humble."

Eric Hoffer, The True Believer, (Mentor, 1951), p. 51.