Louis Dembitz Brandeis

“The most important political office is that of the private citizen.”

“It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”

“Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.”

“Behind every argument is someone's ignorance.”

“If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”

“Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.”

“The right to be let alone is the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.”

“We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.”

“The makers of our Constitution... sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations.”

“If we would guide by the light of reason, we must let our minds be bold.”

“Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.”

“Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties... They valued liberty both as an end and as a means.”

“Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly.”

“Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.”

“Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.”