There is no surer way to misread any document than to read it literally.

Our common law is the stock instance of a combination of custom and its successive adaptations.

It was not the violence of our enemies [in World War I] that would undo us, I thought, but our own spiritual weakness, the shallowness of our convictions.

When I say that a thing is true, I mean that I cannot help believing it... But...I do not venture to assume that my inabilities in the way of thought are inabilities of the universe. I therefore define truth as the system of my limitations, and leave absolute truth for those who are better equipped.

What seems fair enough against a squalid huckster of bad liquor may take on a different face, if used by a government determined to suppress political opposition under the guise of sedition.

Tyranny is tyranny, no matter what its form; the free man will resist it if his courage serves.

Here I am an old man in a long nightgown making muffled noises at people who may be no worse than I am.