The makers of our Constitution . . . conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone - 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 most important office, and the one which all of us can and should fill, is that of private citizen.

Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.

Our government... teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.

The only title in our democracy superior to that of President is the title of citizen.

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.

It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.

Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.

The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.

If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.

My activism does not need proof to be real. It exists in the work of my bones against weight in the morning.

The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law.

I refuse to believe that gods want to make mortals unhappy and torment them. That's what humans do. And humans are very definitely not divine.

Day by day, in every way, I am getting better and better

One man's insanity is another man's genius; someday the world will recognize the genius in my insanity.

I care desperately about what I do. Do I know what product I'm selling? No. Do I know what I'm doing today? No. But I'm here, and I'm gonna give it my best shot.

Every Sherlock Holmes story has at least one marvelous scene.

For me, the Beatles are proof of the existence of God.

The achievement of happiness requires not the satisfaction of our needs but the examination and transformation of those needs.

History is fables agreed upon.