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.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit that is not quite sure it is right.

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.

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.

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

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.

I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon law and upon courts. These are false hopes, believe me, these are false hopes. 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. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no courts to save it.