The constant assumption runs throughout the law that the natural and spontaneous evolutions of habit fix the limits of right and wrong.

What has once been settled by a precedent will not be unsettled overnight, for certainty and uniformity are gains not lightly sacrificed. Above all is this true when honest men have shaped their conduct on the faith of the pronouncement.

The validity of a tax depends upon its nature, and not upon its name.

Opinion has a significance proportioned to the sources that sustain it.

History, in illuminating the past, illuminates the present, and in illuminating the present, illuminates the future.

No judicial system could do society's work if each issue had to be decided afresh in every case which raised it.

The great ideals of liberty and equality are preserved against the assaults of opportunism, the expediency of the passing hour, the erosion of small encroachments, the scorn and derision of those who have no patience with general principles.