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

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

There is a group of people that I think in good faith honestly believe that further curtailing our Second Amendment rights will enhance public safety. But there’s another group that just hates the Second Amendment.

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

A good lawyer is going to try to protect her client.

People have been fed this diet of pabulum, rights, and impulsive freedom. There’s just an absolute starvation for the other side of the story.

Software constraints are only confining if you use them for what they’re intended to be used for.

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

A Constitution should be short and obscure.

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

Alimony – the ransom that the happy pay to the devil.

The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.

A precedent embalms a principle.

It is paradoxical, yet true, to say, that the more we know, the more ignorant we become in the absolute sense, for it is only through enlightenment that we become conscious of our limitations. Precisely one of the most gratifying results of intellectual evolution is the continuous opening up of new and greater prospects.

Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.

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.

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.

There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge.

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

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

When the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal.

We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.

Occupying armies have responsibilities, not rights. Their primary responsibility is to withdraw as quickly and expeditiously as possible, in a manner determined by the occupied population.

When we get to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion.

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.

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.

We’ve been programmed, from the time that we were very, very little, about what we can’t do – about what is impossible.

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.

I love being in a courtroom.

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.

In the nineties, everybody wants to talk about their rights and privileges. Twenty-five years ago, people talked about their obligations and responsibilities.

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.

Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things.

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

A right delayed is a right denied.

When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.

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

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

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.

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

We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.

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

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.

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.

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

I think governments can’t do much.

In time of war the laws are silent.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

As a Zionist youth leader in the 1940s, I was among those who called for a binational state in Mandatory Palestine. When a Jewish state was declared, I felt that it should have the rights of other states – no more, no less.

I’m prepared to say that law enforcement should be allowed to seize the guns of those who are suspected to be involved in domestic terrorism.

I’m opposed to any policy that would deny in our country any human being from access to public safety, public education, or public health, period.

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.

In many respects, the United States is a great country. Freedom of speech is protected more than in any other country. It is also a very free society.

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.

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?

Old age may have its limitations and challenges, but in spite of them, our latter years can be some of the most rewarding and fulfilling of our lives.

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