It seems fair to say that while the moral standards of the nineteenth century persisted almost unchanged into the twentieth, moral practices changed sharply, and that though the standards of the nineteenth century persisted the institutions that had sustained them and the sanctions that had enforced them lost influence and authority.

Education is essential to change, for education creates both new wants and the ability to satisfy them.

The greatest danger we face is not any particular kind of thought. The greatest danger we face is absence of thought.

History is a jangle of accidents, blunders, surprises and absurdities, and so is our knowledge of it, but if we are to report it at all we must impose some order upon it.

Censorship always defeats it own purpose, for it creates in the end the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.

The justification and the purpose of freedom of speech is not to indulge those who want to speak their minds. It is to prevent error and discover truth. There may be other ways of detecting error and discovering truth than that of free discussion, but so far we have not found them.

Our best people don't go into politics.