We must protect the right of our opponents to speak because we must hear what they have to say.

Most men, after a little freedom, have preferred authority with the consoling assurances and the economy of effort it brings.

Nobody has yet found a way of bombing that can prevent foot soldiers from walking.

In a place where everybody thinks alike, nobody thinks very much.

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.

You cannot endow even the best machine with initiative; the jolliest steamroller will not plant flowers.

Robinson Crusoe, the self-sufficient man, could not have lived in New York city.