“Tolerance of diversity is imperative, because without it, life would lose its savor.”

In a free society these institutions must be wholly free – which is to say that their function is to serve as checks upon the state.

The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should serve the state is essentially a Communist notion.

Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidote to major delusions.

Loyalty in a free society depends upon the toleration of disloyalty.

Majorities, of course, are often mistaken. This is why the silencing of minorities is necessarily dangerous.

Progress in the arts, in the sciences, in the patterns of social adjustment springs from diversity and depends upon a tolerance of individual deviations from conventional ways and attitudes.

Thought that is silenced is always rebellious.

News is only the first rough draft of history.

It leaves him free to commit the same deed over and over again, and may, indeed, win him the honors of a hero in the country of his victims.

Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidote to major delusions.

Thought that is silenced is always rebellious.

Character assassination is at once easier and surer than physical assault; and it involves far less risk for the assassin.

Capitalism’s grow-or-die imperative stands radically at odds with ecology’s imperative of interdependence and limit.

After the first establishment of identity there comes the imperative need to lose this new-found sense of separateness and to belong to something larger and more powerful than the weak, lonely self. The sense of moral isolation is intolerable to us.

The first and most imperative necessity in war is money, for money means everything else — men, guns, ammunition.

The moral imperative of humanism is the endeavor alone, whether successful or not, provided the effort is honorable and failure memorable.

When neither high purpose nor the categorical imperatives of religion will do, the only argument against suicide is life itself.

It is imperative that a new and proactive spiritual vision commensurate to the challenges of the emerging world order be enunciated without delay.

It is imperative to create opportunities for children so that we can grow up to blow you away.

It is not enough to simply listen to student voice. Educators have an ethical imperative to do something with students, and that is why meaningful student involvement is vital to school improvement.