Alan Dershowitz Quotes

I am a peace supporting Jew.

Any human being has private thoughts.

All sides in a trial want to hide at least some of the truth.

You can't think about terrorism without thinking about Palestinian terrorism. Palestinians began international terrorism. It started with them in 1968. They used it as the first resort, not the last resort. They invented it, they perfected it, they benefited from it and they taught the world how to

We don't have an Official Secrets Act in the United States, as other countries do. Under the First Amendment, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of association are more important than protecting secrets.

There's no evidence that I'm aware of that guns reduce crime.

There are many levels of truth.

The law is agnostic about truth.

It simply cannot be disputed that for decades the Palestinian leadership was more interested in there not being a Jewish state than in there being a Palestinian state.

I've thought hard about my psychological connections and I think I've managed to separate out the psychological from the legal, moral, and political.

I think mistakes are the essence of science and law. It's impossible to conceive of either scientific progress or legal progress without understanding the important role of being wrong and of mistakes.

Great research universities must insist on independence from government and on the exercise of academic freedom.

Asymmetrical warfare is a euphemism for terrorism, just like collateral damage is a euphemism for killing innocent civilians.

The defendant wants to hide the truth because he's generally guilty. The defense attorney's job is to make sure the jury does not arrive at that truth.

There's no evidence that I'm aware of that guns protect liberty.

Well, many insane people and seriously mentally ill people seem very reasonable.

No country in the history of the world has ever contributed more to humankind and accomplished more for its people in so brief a period of time as Israel has done since its relatively recent rebirth in 1948.

Candor and accountability in a democracy is very important. Hypocrisy has no place.

I think that lawyers are terrible at admitting that they're wrong. And not just admitting it; also realizing it. Most lawyers are very successful, and they think that because they're making money and people think well of them, they must be doing everything right.

The court of last resort is no longer the Supreme Court. It's 'Nightline.'

If torture is going to be administered as a last resort in the ticking-bomb case, to save enormous numbers of lives, it ought to be done openly, with accountability, with approval by the president of the United States or by a Supreme Court justice.

Judges are the weakest link in our system of justice, and they are also the most protected.

I came from a poor family, so working and going to school at the same time was natural. It taught me multi-tasking, although we didn't call it that back then. I learned I could never be idle, I need to be doing many things at once.

The vast majority of gun owners don't kill, but people who do kill, tend to kill with guns, and often with illegal guns.

You know, it's ironic to me that Christians want to keep the Ten Commandments in our schools, because Christianity has abrogated four of the Ten Commandments. For example, the Sabbath day according to the Ten Commandments is Saturday, not Sunday. And the reason is because God rested, not because Jes