In government offices which are sensitive to the vehemence and passion of mass sentiment public men have no sure tenure. They are in effect perpetual office seekers, always on trial for their political lives, always required to court their restless constituents.

There comes a time when even the reformer is compelled to face the fairly widespread suspicion of the average man that politics is an exhibition in which there is much ado about nothing.

Many a time I have wanted to stop talking and find out what I really believed.

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

Whereas each man claims his freedom as a matter of right, the freedom he accords to other men is a matter of toleration.

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.

Great men, even during their lifetime, are usually known to the public only through a fictitious personality.