The mutual confidence on which all else depends can be maintained only by an open mind and a brave reliance upon free discussion.

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

Skepticism is my only gospel, but I don't want to make a dogma out of it.

Life is made up of a series of judgments on insufficient data, and if we waited to run down all our doubts, it would flow past us.

There is no surer way to misread any document than to read it literally. As nearly as we can, we must put ourselves in the place of those who uttered the words, and try to divine how they would have dealt with the unforeseen situation; and, although their words are by far the most decisive evidence of what they would have done, they are by no means final.

That community is already in the process of dissolution where each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where non-conformity with the accepted creed, political as well as religious, is a mark of disaffection; where denunciation, without specification or backing, takes the place of evidence; where orthodoxy chokes freedom of dissent; where faith in the eventual supremacy of reason has become so timid that we dare not enter our convictions in the open lists, to win or lose.

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