"Lawyers, I suppose, were children once"

Charles Lamb’s assertion, “Lawyers, I suppose, were children once,” succinctly draws attention to the transformation that occurs as people age and take on professional roles, emphasizing the often-overlooked humanity of those in seemingly austere or unsympathetic occupations. By invoking the innocence and vulnerability associated with childhood, Lamb invites reflection on the early commonality all people share before the layers of professionalism or societal expectation settle in. Lawyers, frequently cast in literature and public opinion as cold, calculating, or overly pragmatic, are here gently reframed as individuals who, like everyone else, started life with curiosity, joy, and unfiltered emotion.

Lamb’s words suggest both wonder and a faint skepticism, perhaps that it’s hard to reconcile the manifestly childlike qualities, imagination, spontaneity, empathy, with the adult persona adopted in certain professions. The statement thus operates on two levels: on one hand, it is a reminder of shared beginnings and the inexorable changes wrought by growing up; on the other, it is a subtle critique of careers or social roles that demand emotional distance or suppression of softness. The lawyer, as a symbol, stands for all roles that appear to require the sacrifice of innocence or warmth for expertise, protocol, or logic.

Yet, within this gentle musing is also hope, the recognition that beneath the professional exterior, traces of childhood persist, perhaps shaping moral sensibilities, ethical decisions, and personal quirks. By positioning lawyers as having once been children, Lamb asks readers to reconsider quick judgments, to recognize the latent potential for sympathy and understanding even within the most formal or forbidding exteriors. The broader implication is a subtle humanization of all people, regardless of professions or affectations, as those who share a universal journey from childhood to adulthood, and perhaps a call to retain or recall one’s native openness and empathy amid life’s seriousness.