In the end it is worse to suppress dissent than to run the risk of heresy.

Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.

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.

A government of laws without men is as visionary as a government of men without laws.

Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it ... The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias.

Seldom, if ever, does wisdom come, shall we punish it if it comes late?

The spirit of liberty is the spirit of him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned ... .