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"The words which are criticized as dirty [in James Joyce's Ulysses] are old Saxon words known to almost all men, and, I venture, to many women, and are such words as would be naturally and habitually used, I believe, by the types of folk whose life, physical and mental, Joyce is seeking to describe. In respect of the recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds of his characters, it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season spring."--John M. Woolsey, United States v. One Book Called "Ulysses" The practice of law rests heavily on the incisive, pithy, and occasionally witty language of the best technical writing, and law-related themes are often found at the core of works of literature, politics, and other fields. Previous compilations of legal quotations have been limited, with significant gaps; many quoting rarely from American sources. For example, Supreme Court Associate Justice Potter Stewart's famous quip about pornography ("I know it when I see it") appears in no other work. The Oxford Dictionary of American Legal Quotations is the most scholarly and most complete legal quotation reference ever published. It includes a comprehensive collection of the most famous passages of American judges and legal commentators. This work also contains the wittiest sayings from literature, humor, motion pictures, and even song lyrics relating to American law. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Clarence Darrow, and Abraham Lincoln share the pages with Mark Twain, Will Rogers, Kurt Vonnegut, Woody Allen, and Bob Dylan. Over 3,000 entries are presented in a subject arrangement. An author index and an extensive "key-word" index further facilitate location of desired quotes. Each quote has been verified from the original sources, with the precise citations needed for legal reference. For example: "Scarcely any political question arises in the United States which is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question."--Alexis de Tocqueville "The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a bit longer."--Henry Kissinger "No patent medicine was ever put to wider and more varied use than the Fourteenth Amendment."--William O. Douglas "If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought--not free thought for those who agree with us, but freedom for the thought we hate."--Oliver Wendell Holmes "I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterwards. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right."--Henry David Thoreau "No principle of general law is more universally acknowledged, than the perfect equality of nations. Russia and Geneva have equal rights. It results from this equality, that no one can rightfully impose a rule on another....As no nation can prescribe a rule for others, none can make a law of nations."--John Marshall This work fills a need for lawyers and law students requiring material for their legal writing or interested in the rich cultural and historical dimensions of their profession, as well as anyone interested in the legal system so pervasive in modern life or in the vital legacy of the American constitution.

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Library Journal Review

According to the preface, this new reference ``includes quotations by Americans about law, or by foreigners about American law.'' It contains ``passages from judicial opinions, legal treatises, law review articles . . . statutes, legislative materials, ethics rules, presidential documents and speeches.'' Over 3500 quotations are arranged by subject with cross references to other topics; keyword and author indexes are also provided. As one might expect, Oliver Wendell Holmes is quoted most often (255 quotes). Other frequently quoted authors are Robert H. Jackson (134 quotes), Benjamin N. Cardozo (127 quotes), Thomas Jefferson (102 quotes), Learned Hand (89 quotes), and John Marshall (84 quotes). Although other authors include Bob Dylan, Woody Allen, and Mario Puzo--``A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns,''--for the most part, the quotations are serious and lengthy; many are longer than one paragraph. More up-to-date than Ragbag of Legal Quotations (Bender, 1960), more convenient to use than Quote It II (Hein, 1988), which must be searched as a supplement to its previous edition, Quote It (Clark Boardman, 1969), Shapiro's collection is destined to become the standard reference work for legal quotations in public, academic, and law libraries.-- Elizabeth Fielder Olson, Archer & Greiner, Haddonfield, N.J. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

Useful and needed, this dictionary is arranged by broad topic with author and rotated keyword indexes and an appendix that reprints the Constitution. The keyword index shows each word in context; the author index identifies occupations and gives birth and death dates. Entries are numbered, but numbering starts over for each topic, hence the indexes refer to topic and accession number. Shapiro (Yale Law Library; author of LEXIS: The Complete User's Guide, 1989 and, The Most-Cited Law Review Articles, 1987) claims his dictionary is the most complete ever published, with 3,500 quotations. LEXIS was searched extensively to locate judges' and authors' references to famous quotations; those relating to the Constitution, the courts, or the Justice Department were verified to make them suitable for citing in legal publications. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. is cited frequently, as are John Marshall, Benjamin Cardozo, Hugo Black, Learned Hand, and Thurgood Marshall (who warrants 18 quotations); more recent sources include Clarence Thomas, Robert Bork, and Dan Quayle. By contrast, there is only a smattering of quotations by women: Sandra Day O'Connor (eight quotations), Ethel Rosenberg, Lucy Stone, and Carolyn Heilbrun (two each), Anita Hill and Catherine MacKinnon (one each), and Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Mary Joe Frug (none). Such tokenism is no surprise, but is disappointing. Essential for law libraries that want a traditional and timely resource. P. N. Arnold; Norwich University

Booklist Review

This compilation is intended as a definitive work, with citations to original sources in proper legal form for subsequent use. More than 3,500 American legal quotations are arranged under 208 topics, from Abortion to Yale Law School--including even the category Lawyer Jokes and quotations from Mark Twain and Groucho Marx. Under each topic, quotations are arranged chronologically. The author index shows the most frequently quoted person in the book to be Oliver Wendell Holmes. In fact, the introduction points out that 48 individuals are responsible for 60 percent of the quotations. A detailed keyword index takes up more than 100 pages. A Dictionary of Legal Quotations (Macmillan, 1987) is British in origin and uses different terminology for its headings; only 20 were identical. For example, it has no heading Discrimination, as does Oxford. In addition, Oxford has cross-references from Discrimination to Affirmative Action, Civil Rights, Equal Protection, Segregation, Sex Discrimination, and Women's Rights. Many of the subject headings in Oxford are for such legal terms as tort, negligence, and due process. The sources of the quotations range from legal opinions and law reviews to movies. The Oxford Dictionary of American Legal Quotations will be needed by all law libraries, by major academic and public libraries, and by smaller ones as local interest warrants. (Reviewed Nov. 1, 1993)

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Fred R. Shapiro is at Yale Law School.