The American people...have a stake in non-conformity. For they know that the American genius is non-conformist.

If our democracy is to flourish, it must have criticism; if our government is to function it must have dissent.

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.

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

Change does not necessarily assure progress, but progress implacably requires change.

The Bill of Rights was not written to protect governments from trouble. It was written precisely to give the people the constitutional means to cause trouble for governments they no longer trusted.

It is sobering to recall that though the Japanese relocation program, carried through at such incalculable cost in misery and tragedy, was justified on the ground that the Japanese were potentially disloyal, the record does not disclose a single case of Japanese disloyalty or sabotage during the whole war.