A free press is not a privilege but an organic necessity in a great society. Without criticism and reliable and intelligent reporting, the government cannot govern. For there is no adequate way in which it can keep itself informed about what the people of the country are thinking and doing and wanting.

It is perfectly true that that government is best which governs least. It is equally true that that government is best which provides most.

The simple opposition between the people and big business has disappeared because the people themselves have become so deeply involved in big business.

The public must be put in its place, so that it may exercise its own powers, but no less and perhaps even more, so that each of us may live free of the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd.

Happiness cannot be the reward of virtue; it must be the intelligible consequence of it.

Unless the reformer can invent something which substitutes attractive virtues for attractive vices, he will fail.

The first principle of a civilized state is that power is legitimate only when it is under contract.