Family Mediation of Northern Virginia

Inspirational Quotations

"Discourage litigation.  Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can.  Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser -- in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man.  There will still be business enough."

                                                                   Notes for a Law Lecture, Abraham Lincoln, 1850 
  

"My joy was boundless.  I had learnt the true practice of law.  I had learnt to find out the better side of human nature and to enter men's hearts.  I realized that the true function of a lawyer was to unite parties riven asunder.  The lesson was so indelibly burnt into me that a large part of my time during the twenty years of my practice as a lawyer was occupied in bringing about private compromises of hundreds of cases.  I lost nothing thereby -- not even money, certainly not my soul."

                                                                   An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments

                                                                   With Truth, Mohandas K. Gandhi, 1957