Wit & Attitude Quote by Clarence Darrow

Darrow’s line has the swagger of a courtroom closer: truth as both holy grail and moving target, justice as something you pursue with bruised knuckles rather than serene certainty. “Like all hell” is doing the heavy lifting. It rejects the parlor version of truth-seeking - polite debate, genteel objectivity - and replaces it with appetite, obsession, and risk. Darrow knew that in public life, truth isn’t a gemstone you simply pick up; it’s a defendant who bolts, a narrative that gets cross-examined, a fact that arrives late and compromised.

The second half is the sting: “even though you never touch its coat tails.” He concedes fallibility upfront. You won’t “arrive” at pure truth, not in law, not in politics, not in the messy churn of human motives. That’s not a defeat; it’s the point. The freedom he promises isn’t the freedom of being right. It’s the freedom of refusing comforting lies - of not becoming a prisoner to your own side, your own ego, or the convenient story that wins today’s crowd.

In context, Darrow’s career - defending labor leaders, unpopular clients, and civil liberties, famously in the Scopes trial - was a masterclass in operating inside imperfect systems without worshiping them. The subtext is almost anti-dogmatic: certainty is the real jailer. Chase the truth ruthlessly, accept you’ll miss it, and you’ll still outrun the worst trap of all: the need to pretend you caught it.