A man has to live with himself, and he should see to it that he always has good company.
At the constitutional level where we work, ninety percent of any decision is emotional. The rational part of us supplies the reasons for supporting our predilections.
Dissents are appeals to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of another day.
Each man begins with his own world to conquer, and his education is the measure of his conquest.
Emergency does not increase granted power or remove or diminish the restrictions imposed upon power granted or reserved. The Constitution was adopted in a period of grave emergency. Its grants of power to the federal government and its limitations of the power of the States were determined in the light of emergency, and they are not altered by emergency.
Freedom of expression gives the essential democratic opportunity, but self-restraint is the essential civic discipline.
Great powers agreeing among themselves may indeed hold small powers in check. But who will hold great powers in check when great powers disagree?
I think that it is a fallacy to suppose that helpful cooperation in the future will be assured by the attempted compulsion of an inflexible rule.
In a number of cases dissenting opinions have in time become the law.
It is the essence of the institutions of liberty that it be recognized that guilt is personal and cannot be attributed to the holding of opinions or to mere intent in the absence of overt acts.
No greater mistake can be made than to think that our institutions are fixed or may not be changed for the worse.
Our institutions were not devised to bring about uniformity of opinion; if they had we might well abandon hope.
Publicity is a great purifier because it sets in action the forces of public opinion, and in this country public opinion controls the courses of the nation.
Selfishness and demagoguery take advantage of liberty. The selfish hand constantly seeks to control government, and every increase of governmental power, even to meet just needs, furnishes opportunity for abuse and stimulates the effort to bend it to improper uses.
The first lesson in civics is that efficient government begins at home.
The greater the importance to safeguarding the community from incitements to the overthrow of our institutions by force and violence, the more imperative is the need to preserve the constitutional rights of free speech, free press and free assembly in order to maintain the opportunity for free political discussion.
The liberty of the press is not confined to newspapers and periodicals. It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets... the press in its historic connotation comprehends every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion.
The most ominous spirit of our times, as it seems to me, is the indication of the growth of an intolerent spirit.
The pathway of peace is the longest and most beset with obstacles the human race has to tread; the goal may be distant, but we must press on.
The peril of this Nation is not in any foreign foe! We, the people, are its power, its peril, and its hope!
The power of administrative bodies to make finding of fact which may be treated as conclusive, if there is evidence both ways, is a power of enormous consequence. An unscrupulous administrator might be tempted to say 'Let me find the facts for the people of my country, and I care little who lays down the general principles.'.
The Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal will take care of themselves. Look after the courts of the poor, who stand most in need of justice. The security of the republic will be found in the treatment of the poor and the ignorant. In indifference to their misery and helplessness lies disaster.
The United States is the greatest law factory the world has ever known.
There is no path to peace except as the will of peoples may open to it. The way of peace is through agreement, not through force.
Time has shown how illusory are alliances of great powers so far as the maintenance of peace is concerned. In considering the use of international force to secure peace, we are again brought to the fundamental necessity of common accord.
War should be made a crime, and those who instigate it should be punished as criminals.
We (the Government) are here not as masters but as servants, we are not here to glory in power, but to attest our loyalty to the commands and restrictions laid down by our sovereign, the people of the United States, in whose name and by whose will we exercise our brief authority.
We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is, and the judiciary is the safeguard of our liberty and of our property under the Constitution.
We may gain something in our quest for peace if we recognize at once that war is not an abnormality. In the truest sense, it is not the mere play of brute force. It is the expression of the insistent human will, inflexible in its purpose.
We still proclaim the old ideals of liberty but we cannot voice them without anxiety in our hearts. The question is no longer one of establishing democratic institutions but of preserving them.
When we deal with questions relating to principles of law and their applications, we do not suddenly rise into a stratosphere of icy certainty.
When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free.
While democracy must have its organizations and controls, its vital breath is individual liberty.
Found 33 occurence(s) in 52,551 quotation(s).
Categories: Quotes of the day
KGB Quotation Database Search page design and software
contributed by Rafal Sulejman.
