“We must dissent from the fear.”

I’m the world’s original gradualist. I just think ninety-odd years is gradual enough.

The First Amendment serves not only the needs of the polity but also those of the human spirit – a spirit that demands self-expression .

The measure of a country’s greatness is its ability to retain compassion in time of crisis.

Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men’s minds.

The death penalty is no more effective a deterrent than life imprisonment. It is also evident that the burden of capital punishment falls upon the poor, the ignorant and the underprivileged members of society.

Ending racial discrimination in jury selection can be accomplished only by eliminating peremptory challenges entirely.

Equal means getting the same thing, at the same time and in the same place.

The Constitution was a product of its times.

Classifications and distinctions based on race or color have no moral or legal validity in our society. They are contrary to our constitution and laws.

What is the quality of your intent?

We can always stick together when we are losing, but tend to find means of breaking up when we’re winning.

I cannot accept this invitation for I do not believe that the meaning of the Constitution was forever ‘fixed’ at the Philadelphia Convention… To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start. [Progressive]

Mere access to the courthouse doors does not by itself assure a proper functioning of the adversary process.

History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.

Lawlessness is lawlessness. Anarchy is anarchy is anarchy. Neither race nor color nor frustration is an excuse for either lawlessness or anarchy.

The process of democracy is one of change. Our laws are not frozen into immutable form, they are constantly in the process of revision in response to the needs of a changing society.

The superstitious man wishes he did not believe in gods, as the atheist does not, but fears to disbelieve in them.

I could never love her, the fear of losing would be too strong.

All the scars I hide fearfully, you see; counting them carefully with your lips, and telling me they are beautiful.

The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it.

At the heart of all men suffering lies the absence of safety, and from that absence, fear is born.

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already 3 parts dead.

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of great fear.

Your writing is never as good as you hoped, but never as bad as you feared.