Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the state was to make men free to develop their faculties... They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty... that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government.

The world presents enough problems if you believe it to be a world of law and order; do not add to them by believing it to be a world of miracles.

The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.

The right most valued by all civilized men is the right to be left alone.

Crime is contagious....if the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law.

America has believed that in differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress. It acted on this belief; it has advanced human happiness, and it has prospered.

Subtler and more far-reaching means of invading privacy have become available to the government. Discovery and invention have made it possible for the government, by means far more effective than stretching upon the rack, to obtain disclosure in court of what is whispered in the closet.