A court which yields to the popular will thereby licenses itself to practice despotism, for there can be no assurance that it will not on another occasion indulge its own will. |
The mark of a truly civilized man is confidence in the strength and security derived from the inquiring mind. |
Freedom of expression is the well-spring of our civilization...
The history of civilization is in considerable measure
the displacement of error which once held sway
as official truth by beliefs which in turn have yielded to other truths.
Therefore the liberty of man to search for truth
ought not to be fettered, no matter what orthodoxies he may challenge. |
The requirement of “due process” is not a fairweather or timid assurance. It must be respected in periods of calm and in times of trouble; it protects aliens as well as citizens. |
Ours is an accusatorial and not an inquisitorial system – a system in which the state must establish guilt by evidence independently and freely secured and may not by coercion prove its charge against an accused out of his own mouth. |
It is easy to make light of insistence on scrupulous regard for the safeguards of civil liberties when invoked on behalf of the unworthy. History bears testimony that by such disregard are the rights of liberty extinguished, heedlessly at first, then stealthily, and brazenly in the end. |
The history of liberty has largely been the history of the observance of procedural safeguards. |
Liberty of thought soon shrivels without freedom of expression. Nor can truth be pursued in an atmosphere hostile to the endeavor or under dangers which are hazarded only by heroes. |
