It is easy to make light of insistence on scrupulous regard for the safeguards of civil liberties when invoked on behalf of the unworthy. It is too easy. History bears testimony that by such disregard are the rights of liberty extinguished, heedlessly at first, then stealthily, and brazenly in the end.

I came into the world a Jew, and although I did not live my life entirely as a Jew, I think it is fitting that I should leave as a Jew. I don't want to ... turn my back on a great and noble heritage.

It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have been forged in controversies involving not very nice people.

The mark of a truly civilized man is confidence in the strength and security derived from the inquiring mind.

All our work, our whole life is a matter of semantics, because words are the tools with which we work, the material out of which laws are made, out of which the Constitution was written. Everything depends on our understanding of them.

The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself, and not what we have said about it.

Judicial judgment must take deep account...of the day before yesterday in order that yesterday may not paralyze today.