All quotes

Want of a common judge with authority, puts all men in a state of nature: force without right, upon a man's person, makes a state of war

Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed to another's harm

Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.

Any broader view of this authority would effectively empower a majority to silence dissidents simply as a matter of personal predilections.

Surely the State has no right to cleanse public debate to the point where it is grammatically palatable to the most squeamish among us.

Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear.

It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law.

The endorsement of that position by the majority of this Court can only lend credence to the most cynical appraisal of the work of judges throughout the land.

A good despotism is an altogether false ideal, which practically (except as a means to some temporary purpose) becomes the most senseless and dangerous of chimeras.

Only an unmitigated despotism demands that the individual citizen shall obey unconditionally every mandate of persons in authority.

The interest of the people is that there should be full liberty of censure on every public officer, and on every public act or measure.

Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.

A Sultan's favourite slave has slaves under her, over whom she tyrannizes; but the desirable thing would be that she should neither have slaves nor be a slave.

Even the commonest men reserve the violent, the sulky, the undisguisedly selfish side of their character for those who have no power to withstand it.

The subjection of women to men being a universal custom, any departure from it quite naturally appears unnatural.

Such increase is destined to keep pace with the growth of our population, until, without a figure of speech, an army of officeholders may be spread over the land.

How mighty, as to the outward, is that Power by which they are borne down, and oppressed!

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.

Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen.

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.

If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.

The confirmed criminal is as much entitled to redress as his most virtuous fellow citizen; no record of crime, however long, makes one an outlaw.

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.

the right to be let alone--the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men

it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government