Our best people don't go into politics.

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

In the long run [censorship] will create a generation incapable of appreciating the difference between independence of thought and subservience.

It is probably safe to say that over a long period of time, political morality has been as high as business morality.

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.

To yearn for a single, and usually simple, explanation of the chaotic materials of the past, to search for a single thread in that most tangled of all skeins, is a sign of immaturity.

We cannot have a society half slave and half free; nor can we have thought half slave and half free. If we create an atmosphere in which men fear to think independently, inquire fearlessly, express themselves freely, we will in the end create the kind of society in which men no longer care to think independently or to inquire fearlessly.