Archibald Cox Quotes

• Whether ours shall be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately the American people.

  Archibald Cox

  Men, Law, People

  Statement, 20 Oct. 1973. Cox had just been dismissed by President Richard M. Nixon because he refused to drop his lawsuit to obtain Watergaterelated White House tapes. See John Adams 4; Gerald Ford 3; James Harrington 1

  89 Copy quote

• A free society depends upon a high degree of mutual trust. The public will not give that trust to officials who are not seen to be impartially dedicated to the general public interest, nor will they give trust to those high in government who violate the rule of law they ask citizens to obey at the expense of self-interest, or to those who present government as the place where one feathers his own nest, [or] exchanges favors with friends and former associates.

  Archibald Cox

  Government, Self, Law

  51 Copy quote

• What can you or I do? Alone, almost nothing. Yet one person - you alone - can make the difference. . . . The failure of just one person to join, to participate, to do whatever he or she can - your failure or my failure - may mean that there is just one too few to win the fight for sanity, and so leave the world on the road to destruction. Each of us, all of us, must do what we can.

  Archibald Cox

  Mean, Fighting, Winning

  36 Copy quote

• I confess that I cannot understand how we can plot, lie, cheat and commit murder abroad and remain humane, honorable, trustworthy and trusted at home.

  Archibald Cox

  Lying, Home, Plot

  24 Copy quote

• Watergate showed more strengths in our system than weaknesses... The whole country did take part in quite a genuine sense in passing judgment on Richard Nixon.

  Archibald Cox

  Country, Weakness, Judgment

  52 Copy quote

• Through the centuries, men of law have been persistently concerned with the resolution of disputes in ways that enable society to achieve its goals with a minimum of force and maximum of reason.

  Archibald Cox

  Men, Law, Goal

  17 Copy quote

• ... true civil disobedience ... compels the state to resort to power.

  Archibald Cox

  States, Resorts, Civil Disobedience

  10 Copy quote

• A great many college graduates come here thinking of lawyers as social engineers arguing the great Constitutional issues.

  Archibald Cox

  College, Thinking, Issues

  8 Copy quote

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