The Greatest Danger We Face Is Not

The Justification And The Purpose Of Freedom Of Speech Is Not To Indulge Those Who Want To Speak Their Minds. It Is To Prevent Error And Discover Truth. There May Be Other Ways Of Detecting Error And Discovering Truth Than That Of Free Discussion, But So Far We Have Not Found Them.

If Our Democracy Is To Flourish, It Must Have Criticism; If Our Government Is To Function It Must Have Dissent.

History Is A Jangle Of Accidents, Blunders, Surprises And Absurdities, And So Is Our Knowledge Of It, But If We Are To Report It At All We Must Impose Some Order Upon It.

It Seems Fair To Say That While The Moral Standards Of The Nineteenth Century Persisted Almost Unchanged Into The Twentieth, Moral Practices Changed Sharply, And That Though The Standards Of The Nineteenth Century Persisted The Institutions That Had Sustained Them And The Sanctions That Had Enforced Them Lost Influence And Authority.

The Bill Of Rights Was Not Written To Protect Governments From Trouble. It Was Written Precisely To Give The People The Constitutional Means To Cause Trouble For Governments They No Longer Trusted.