In the frank expression of conflicting opinions lies the greatest promise of wisdom in governmental action.
There are no shortcuts in evolution.
The most important political office is that of the private citizen.
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.
America has believed that in differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress. It acted on this belief it has advanced human happiness, and it has prospered.
We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.
To declare that in the administration of criminal law the end justifies the means to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure conviction of a private criminal would bring terrible retribution.
Our government... teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law it invites every man to become a law unto himself it invites anarchy.
Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.
Those who won our independence... valued liberty as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.
Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify oppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.