Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficent.
—Louis Brandeis, 1928
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Quotes
It is very foolish to attack one’s enemy openly if one can injure him in secret.
—Giambattista Giraldi, 1543And then, sir, there is this consideration: that if the abuse be enormous, nature will rise up and, claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system.
—Samuel Johnson, 1791Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with the necessities.
—John Lothrop Motley, 1858A tree’s a tree. How many more do you need to look at?
—Ronald Reagan, 1965When one has a famishing thirst for happiness, one is apt to gulp down diversions wherever they are offered.
—Alice Hegan Rice, 1917The sea is mother-death, and she is a mighty female, the one who wins, the one who sucks us all up.
—Anne Sexton, 1971Fame is but the empty noise of madmen.
—Epictetus, c. 100Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.
—Zora Neale Hurston, 1937I went [to war] because I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want the glory or the pay; I wanted the right thing done.
—Louisa May Alcott, 1863You cannot endow even the best machine with initiative; the jolliest steamroller will not plant flowers.
—Walter Lippmann, 1913Some of us would be greatly astonished to learn the reasons why others respect us.
—Marquis de Vauvenargues, 1746The deed is everything, the glory naught.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1832