“In the long history of humankind those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”
— Charles Darwin
“Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”
— Victor Hugo
“[A]ll disputes (if unhappily any should arise) shall be decided by three impartial and intelligent men known for their probity and understanding; two to be chosen by the disputants, each having the choice of one, and the third by those two — which three men thus chosen, shall unfettered by law, or legal constructions, declare their sense of the Testator’s intention; and such decision is, to all intents and purposes to be as binding on the parties as if it had been given in the Supreme Court of the United States.”
— George Washington’s will (setting out the structure of arbitration)
“Clients should understand that it often is to their benefit to trade hope for certainty.”
— Goltz, “Settling the Score”, ABA Journal 8/96, p. 90
“Society’s greatest opportunity lies in tapping the human inclination towards collaboration and compromise, in the most creative social experiment of our time.”
— Derek Bok, president, Harvard University
“Mieux vaut un mauvais accord qu’un bon proces.” (“Better a poor agreement than a good trial.”)
— French expression
“Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
“The courts of this country should not be the places where resolution of disputes begins. They should be the places where the disputes end after alternative methods of resolving disputes have been considered and tried.”
— Justice Sandra Day O’Connor
“A good deal is a state of mind.”
— Lee Iacocca, American businessman
“There is more power in joined minds than in one mind.”
— Anonymous
“We can no longer wait for the storm to pass. We must learn to work in the rain.”
— Pete Silas, Phillips Petroleum
I Corinthians 1:5: “I say this to shame you. Can it be that there is not one among you wise enough to be able to settle a case between brothers?”