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

Our best people don't go into politics.

America was born of revolt, flourished in dissent, became great through experimentation.

And we wonder what can be that 'philosophy of education' which believes that young people can be trained to the duties of citizenship by wrapping their minds in cotton wool.

Every effort to confine Americanism to a single pattern, to constrain it to a single formula, is disloyalty to everything that is valid in Americanism.

History, we can confidently assert, is useful in the sense that art and music, poetry and flowers, religion and philosophy are useful. Without it - as with these - life would be poorer and meaner; without it we should be denied some of those intellectual and moral experiences which give meaning and richness to life. Surely it is no accident that the study of history has been the solace of many of the noblest minds of every generation.

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