Daily Inspiration Quote by Wilson Mizner

Mizner’s line lands like a compliment until you notice the knife. “Ample contact” is the bored, world-weary preface of a man who’s seen enough of a profession to stop believing its PR. Then he gives you the twist: lawyers do, indeed, “leave a fortune” - just not for anyone else. The humor works because it hijacks a familiar cultural promise (law as protection, inheritance as duty) and flips it into a story of extraction.

The specific intent is social demolition in a single sentence. As a dramatist and professional bon vivant, Mizner understood that the cleanest insult is the one that sounds like an observation. He isn’t arguing that all lawyers are corrupt; he’s suggesting the profession’s incentives make self-enrichment feel like the default outcome. “Convinced” matters here: it’s not evidence, it’s accumulated disappointment, the kind that comes from watching fees multiply while justice stalls.

The subtext is class anxiety disguised as a joke. In early 20th-century America, money was getting bigger, systems more bureaucratic, and the law increasingly felt like a machine you rented by the hour. Mizner’s cynicism flatters the audience’s suspicion that the game is rigged, then offers them the pleasure of laughing at it. It also absolves the speaker: if the lawyers are predatory by nature, being wary isn’t paranoia; it’s wisdom.

That’s why the line still circulates. It doesn’t just mock lawyers; it mocks the hope that institutions will care about you more than they care about their own billable hours.