Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficial. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.
I abhor averages. I like the individual case. A man may have six meals one day and none the next, making an average of three meals per day, but that is not a good way to live.
Neutrality is at times a graver sin than belligerence.
In the frank expression of conflicting opinions lies the greatest promise of wisdom in governmental action.
Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify oppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.
The logic of words should yield to the logic of realities.
Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.
America has believed that in differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress. It acted on this belief; it has advanced human happiness, and it has prospered.
Organization can never be a substitute for initiative and for judgment.
Nearly all legislation involves a weighing of public needs as against private desires; and likewise a weighing of relative social values.
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