It must be remembered that the purpose of education is not to fill the minds of students with facts... it is to teach them to think.

The policy of the repression of ideas cannot work and never has worked. The alternative to it is the long difficult road of education. To this the American people have committed.

...The task is overwhelming, and the chance is slight. We must take the chance or die.

There is only one justification for universities, as distinguished from trade schools. They must be centers of criticism.

Education is not to reform students or amuse them or to make them expert technicians. It is to unsettle their minds, widen their horizons, inflame their intellects, teach them to think straight, if possible.

Freedom of inquiry, freedom of discussion, and freedom of teaching - without these a university cannot exist.

A civilization in which there is not a continuous controversy about important issues is on the way to totalitarianism and death