The tendency of the casual mind is to pick out or stumble upon a sample which supports or defies its prejudices, and then to make it the representative of a whole class.

The common interests very largely elude public opinion entirely, and can be managed only by a specialised class.

Lovers who have nothing to do but love each other are not really to be envied; love and nothing else very soon is nothing else.

Free institutions are not the property of any majority. They do not confer upon majorities unlimited powers. The rights of the majority are limited rights. They are limited not only by the constitutional guarantees but by the moral principle implied in those guarantees. That principle is that men may not use the facilities of liberty to impair them. No man may invoke a right in order to destroy it.

Industry is a better horse to ride than genius.

The study of error is not only in the highest degree prophylactic, but it serves as a stimulating introduction to the study of truth.

The essential discovery of maturity has little if anything to do with information about the names, the locations, and the sequence of facts; it is the acquiring of a different sense of life, a different kind of intuition about the nature of things.