How long shall we blunder along without the aid of unpartisan and authoritative scientific assistance in the administration of justice, no one knows; but all fair persons not conventionalized by provincial legal habits of mind ought, I should think, unite to effect some change.
I had rather take my chance that some traitors will escape detection than spread abroad a spirit of general suspicion and distrust, which accepts rumor and gossip in place of undismayed and unintimidated inquiry.
The public needs the equivalent of Chevrolets as well as Cadillacs.
A self-made man may prefer a self-made name.
The mutual confidence on which all else depends can be maintained only by an open mind and a brave reliance upon free discussion.
For myself it would be most irksome to be ruled by a bevy of Platonic Guardians, even if I knew how to choose them, which I assuredly do not.
A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few.
There is nothing sinister in so arranging one’s affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible.
The condition of our survival in any but the meagerest existence is our willingness to accommodate ourselves to the conflicting interests of others, to learn to live in a social world.
Today in America vast concourses of youth are flocking to our colleges, eager for something, just what they do not know.
There is something monstrous in commands couched in invented and unfamiliar language; an alien master is the worst of all. The language of the law must not be foreign to the ears of those who are to obey it.
Heretics have been hated from the beginning of recorded time; they have been ostracized, exiled, tortured, maimed, and butchered; but it has generally proved impossible to smother them; and when it has not, the society that has succeeded has always declined.
If the prosecution of crime is to be conducted with so little regard for that protection which centuries of English law have given to the individual, we are indeed at the dawn of a new era; and much that we have deemed vital to our liberties, is a delusion.
Since we are men, we will play the part of Man.
Convention is like the shell to the chick, a protection till he is strong enough to break it through.
Life is made up of constant calls to action, and we seldom have time for more than hastily contrived answers.
Words are chameleons, which reflect the color of their environment.
Right knows no boundaries, and justice no frontiers; the brotherhood of man is not a domestic institution.
We prate of freedom; we are in deadly fear of life, as much of our own American scene betrays.
In america, there are two tax systems: one for the informed and one for the uninformed. Both are legal.