When I Say That A Thing Is

All Discussion, All Debate, All Dissidence Tends To Question And In Consequence, To Upset Existing Convictions; That Is Precisely Its Purpose And Its Justification.

The Lawyer Must Either Learn To Live More Capaciously Or Be Content To Find Himself Continuously Less Trusted, More Circumscribed, Till He Becomes Hardly More Important Than A Minor Administrator, Confined To A Monotonous Round Of Record And Routine, Without Dignity, Inspiration, Or Respect.

Political Agitation, By The Passions It Arouses Or The Convictions It Engenders, May In Fact Stimulate Men To The Violation Of The Law. Detestation Of Existing Policies Is Easily Transformed Into Forcible Resistance Of The Authority Which Puts Them In Execution, And It Would Be Folly To Disregard The Causal Relation Between The Two. Yet To Assimilate Agitation, Legitimate As Such, With Direct Incitement To Violent Resistance, Is To Disregard The Tolerance Of All Methods Of Political Agitation Which In Normal Times Is A Safeguard Of Free Government.

You Cannot Raise The Standard Against Oppression, Or Leap Into The Breach To Relieve Injustice, And Still Keep An Open Mind To Every Disconcerting Fact, Or An Open Ear To The Cold Voice Of Doubt. I Am Satisfied That A Scholar Who Tries To Combine These Parts Sells His Birthright For A Mess Of Pottage; That, When The Final Count Is Made, It Will Be Found That The Impairment Of His Powers Far Outweighs Any Possible Contribution To The Causes He Has Espoused.

Life In A Great Society, Or For That Matter In A Small, Is A Web Of Tangled Relations Of All Sorts, Whose Adjustment So That It May Be Endurable Is An Extraordinarily Troublesome Matter.