Our rights are not absolute. Our rights can be curtailed in the interest of public safety.

These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.

The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.

The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.

We don’t seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business?

In the literal sense, there has been no relevant evolution since the trek from Africa. But there has been substantial progress towards higher standards of rights, justice and freedom – along with all too many illustrations of how remote is the goal of a decent society.

Laws are silent in time of war.

The only way you can beat the lawyers is to die with nothing.

Oh, I can’t play soccer, and I’m not a great swimmer. I won’t drown, but you won’t see me doing laps in a pool.

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom.

Those who cry out that the government should ‚do something‘ never even ask for data on what has actually happened when the government did something, compared to what actually happened when the government did nothing.

I cannot discover that anyone knows enough to say definitely what is and what is not possible.

Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.

The government argues that First Amendment rights are outweighed by the need to prosecute those who transmit classified information and documents.

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

We’re talking about in the Proposition 8 case fundamental rights, civil rights. I offer no apology for the position I took in Prop. 8.

With audacity one can undertake anything, but not do everything.

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.

We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.

Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.

Liberty is the right to do what I like; license, the right to do what you like.

You cannot make a giant space company in your dorm room. Not today. And the reason is that the heavy lifting infrastructure isn’t in place.

Man can climb to the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long.

Guns are bad, I tell you.

The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.

We think the Dred Scott decision is erroneous. We know the court that made it has often overruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it overrule this.

What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.

Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

The Bill of Rights is not an a la carte menu.

One should never forbid what one lacks the power to prevent.

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.

I think we ought to raise the age at which juveniles can have a gun.

To understand the power of the priesthood, we must know its limitations.

I have trouble imagining what I could do that’s beyond the practicality of what I can do.

People who have given us their complete confidence believe that they have a right to ours. The inference is false, a gift confers no rights.

We have soon to have everywhere smoke annihilators, dust absorbers, ozonizers, sterilizers of water, air, food and clothing, and accident preventers on streets, elevated roads and in subways. It will become next to impossible to contract disease germs or get hurt in the city, and country folk will got to town to rest and get well.

Most people are unable to write because they are unable to think, and they are unable to think because they congenitally lack the equipment to do so, just as they congenitally lack the equipment to fly over the moon.

I love being in a courtroom.

Have you ever thought how humiliating and distressing it was to be placed upon a sphere? For friendship it is a boon never to be able to be further apart than the antipodes. But suppose that you are leaving together to go on and on; it is impossible. To go beyond a certain point is to return to where you began.

I want to make something that is breathtaking. Of course, you can’t make something that is always breathtaking, or you would never be able to breathe. You would collapse.

Liberty consists in the power of doing that which is permitted by the law.

The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that… it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.

In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.

Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.

I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.

A private soldier has as much right to justice as a major-general.

No book includes the entire world. It’s limited. And so it doesn’t seem like an aesthetic compromise to have to do that. There’s so much other material to write about.

A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.

Should there be cameras everywhere in outdoor streets? My personal view is having cameras in inner cities is a very good thing. In the case of London, petty crime has gone down. They catch terrorists because of it. And if something really bad happens, most of the time you can figure out who did it.

We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

Freedom is a right ultimately defended by the sacrifice of America’s servicemen and women.

I don’t think we need more gun control laws.

I seldom think about my limitations, and they never make me sad. Perhaps there is just a touch of yearning at times; but it is vague, like a breeze among flowers.

We have no right to express an opinion until we know all of the answers.

Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.

Unless your government is respectable, foreigners will invade your rights; and to maintain tranquillity, it must be respectable – even to observe neutrality, you must have a strong government.

If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole?

In our monogamous part of the world, to marry means to halve one’s rights and double one’s duties.

We all have wings, but they have not been of any avail to us and if we could tear them off, we would do so.

A successful lawsuit is the one worn by a policeman.