The object of philosophy is to prove that you are right in doing what you want.
¶ "Reminiscences of a Holmes Secretary" (W. Barton Leach) (16 Oct 1935)
Quotations by ...
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935) American jurist, Supreme Court Justice
To act is to affirm the worth of an end.
¶ "The Class of '61," speech on 50th anniversary of graduating from Harvard (28 Jun 1911)
I happen to prefer champagne to ditchwater, but there is no reason to suppose that the cosmos does.
¶ (Attributed)
Quoted by William F Buckley, Jr., in The National Review, "Publisher's Statement" (first issue, 19 Nov 1955)
Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke.
¶ (Attributed)
If I had a formula for bypassing trouble, I would not pass it around. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don't embrace trouble; that's as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say: meet it as a friend, for you'll see a lot of it, and had better be on speaking terms with it.
¶ (Attributed)
Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out.
¶ (Attributed)
The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour upon it, the more it will contract.
¶ (Attributed)
The aim of the law is not to punish sins.
¶ (Attributed)
The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins.
¶ (Attributed)
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.
¶ (Attributed)
The longing for certainty and repose is in every human mind. But certainty generally is an illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.
¶ (Attributed)
If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought — not free thought only for those who agree with us, but freedom for the thought we hate.
¶ (Attributed)
The great act of faith is when man decides that he is not God.
¶ (Attributed)
When men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas -- that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.
¶ Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 630 (Dissent) (1919)
Judges are commonly elderly men, and are more likely to hate at sight any analysis to which they are not accustomed, and which disturbs repose of mind, than to fall in love with novelties.
¶ Harvard Law Review, "Law in Science and Science in Law" (1899)
The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.
¶ Schenck v. United States (3 Mar 1919)
Full opinion.
People who honestly mean to be true really contradict themselves much more than those who try to be "consistent."
¶ The Professor at the Breakfast Table
A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.
¶ Towne v. Eisner, 245 U.S. 425 (1918)
But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas — that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out.
¶ Dissenting, Abrams et al. v. United States, 250 U.S. 630 (1919).
As life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived.
¶ Memorial Day address, Keene, NH (30 May 1884)
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WIST is my collection of quotations I find meaningful, moving, amusing (intended or not), well-phrased, and/or to which I just say I "Wish I'd Said That." But just because I quote it here doesn't mean I actually agree with it. If you have any comments, corrections, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to
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