The very purpose of a bill of rights is to withdraw certain subjects from...political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities.

Your job today tells me nothing of your future--your use of your leisure today tells me just what your tomorrow will be.

If certain acts in violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.

There is no such thing as an achieved liberty: like electricity, there can be no substantial storage and it must be generated as it is enjoyed, or the lights go out.

While the Nation has forbidden monopoly by one set of laws it has been creating them by another. Patent laws, valuable as they may be in some respects, often father monopoly.

Intellectual freedom means the right to re-examine much that has been long taken for granted. A free man must be a reasoning man, and he must dare doubt what a legislative or electoral majority may most passionately assert.

To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead of a compulsory routine is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds.