Each one of us must in the end choose for himself how far he would like to leave our collective fate to the wayward vagaries of popular assemblies For myself it would be most irksome to be ruled by a bevy of Platonic Guardians, even if I knew how to choose them, which I assuredly do not I should miss the stimulus of living in a society where I have, at least theoretically, some part in the direction of public affairs.

Heretics have been hated from the beginning of recorded time; they have been ostracized, exiled, tortured, maimed, and butchered; but it has generally proved impossible to smother them; and when it has not, the society that has succeeded has always declined.

Life is made up of constant calls to action, and we seldom have time for more than hastily contrived answers.

I had rather take my chance that some traitors will escape detection than spread abroad a spirit of general suspicion and distrust, which accepts rumor and gossip in place of undismayed and unintimidated inquiry.

Words are chameleons, which reflect the color of their environment.

The use of history is to tell us what we are, for at our birth we are nearly empty vessels and we become what our tradition pours into us.

Those of us who have come to years of discretion and more, must often take to retrospect, and seek to appraise the outcome of our lives.