When the Supreme Court moved to Washington in 1800, it was provided with no books, which probably accounts for the high quality of early opinions.

The day that this country ceases to be free for irreligion it will cease to be free for religion - except for the sect that can win political power.

It is not the function of government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.

Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.

The common sense of mankind demands that law shall not stop with the punishment of petty crimes by little people. It must also reach men who possess themselves of great power.

I see no reason why I should be consciously wrong today because I was unconsciously wrong yesterday.

The price of freedom of religion or of speech or of the press is that we must put up with, and even pay for, a good deal of rubbish.

One's right to life, liberty, and property depends on the outcome of no election.

The most odious of all oppressions are those which mask as justice.

The priceless heritage of our society is the unrestricted constitutional right of each member to think as he will. Thought control is a copyright of totalitarianism, and we have no claim to it.

The very purpose of a bill of rights is to withdraw certain subjects from...political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities.

Company is a burden to those at home in the solitude of their souls.

It's beauty that captures your attention

Speeches made to the people are essential to the arousing of enthusiasm for a war.

I don't ever watch myself. By watching, you try to perfect yourself, become a robot.

Part of me wishes some of the more obsessive fans would spend a fraction of the time they spend studying the band.

People want an idol. They want royalty. They don't want a public servant. Hell no. They want someone to clap for and go, "Oh, he touched my hand at the rally!"

If you can’t appreciate what you’ve got, you’d better get what you can appreciate.

If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.

I believe in a spiritual world - not as anything separate from this world - but as its innermost truth. With the breath we draw we must always feel this truth, that we are living in God.

It's the greatest of Southern honors . . . to have one's name incorporated into a family tree. It's an honor not lightly given.