The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.

We prate of freedom; we are in deadly fear of life, as much of our own American scene betrays.

Those of us who have come to years of discretion and more, must often take to retrospect, and seek to appraise the outcome of our lives.

We all have our prayer-wheels which we set up on the steppes. The indifferent winds come and carry most of them away to gasp out their little lives in the desert, for few reach heaven.

The legal relations between the individual and the community which arise out of the production and distribution of property, comprise by far the greater, and more important, part of the law; subtract these and very little content would be left.

The public official must pick his way nicely, must learn to placate though not to yield too much, to have the art of honeyed words but not to seem neutral, and above all to keep constantly audible, visible, likable, even kissable.

Life in a great society, or for that matter in a small, is a web of tangled relations of all sorts, whose adjustment so that it may be endurable is an extraordinarily troublesome matter.

We recently had a referendum in New York about extending the forest preserve. The city voted for it by a large majority; yet as I walk the streets I do not see afforestation written with conviction on the harried faces of my fellow citizens.

Tyranny is tyranny, no matter what its form; the free man will resist it if his courage serves.

The apathy of the modern voter is the confusion of the modern reformer.