It is not the function of government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.

Education should be a lifelong process, the formal period serving as a foundation on which life's structure may rest and rise.

The priceless heritage of our society is the unrestricted constitutional right of each member to think as he will. Thought control is a copyright of totalitarianism, and we have no claim to it.

In this court the parties changed positions as nimbly as if dancing a quadrille.

The price of freedom of religion or of speech or of the press is that we must put up with, and even pay for, a good deal of rubbish.

Particularly when the war power is invoked to do things to the liberties of people, or to their property or economy that only indirectly affect conduct of the war and do not relate to the engagement of the war itself, the constitutional basis should be scrutinized with care. ... I would not be willing to hold that war powers may be indefinitely prolonged merely by keeping legally alive a state of war that had in fact ended. I cannot accept the argument that war powers last as long as the effects and consequences of war for if so they are permanent -- as permanent as the war debts.

Perhaps you have heard about the college executives who were discussing what they wanted to do after retirement age. One hoped to run a prison or school of correction so that the alumni would never come back to visit. Another chose to manage an orphan asylum so that he would not be plagued with advice from parents.