Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail.

Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.

Things have got to be wrong in order that they may be deplored.

There are certain things that we can accomplish by law and there are certain things that we cannot accomplish by law or by any process of government. We cannot legislate intelligence. We cannot legislate morality. Nor can we legislate loyalty, for loyalty is a kind of morality.

A college education is not a quantitative body of memorized knowledge salted away in a card file. It is a taste for knowledge, a taste for philosophy, if you will; a capacity to explore, to question to perceive relationships, between fields of knowledge and experience.

There will be certain things in a man that have to be won, not forced; inspired, not compelled.

There are certain things in a man that have to be won, not forced; inspired, not compelled. Among these are many, I should say most, of the things that constitute the good life. All are essential to democracy. All are proof against its enemies.