First Amendment
654 – Henry Steele Commager on Governments and Criticism
“If government, or those in positions of power and authority, can silence criticism by the argument that such criticism might be misunderstood somewhere, there is an end to all criticism, and perhaps an end to our kind of political system. For men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.”
–Henry Steele Commager (more…)
493 – “Protests and marches eventually die down but that does not mean movements end. They carry on behind the scenes, trudging along to make steady and lasting change. I see the promise of more civically engaged young people doing just this. They are engaged to stand up—whether it is gun violence, immigration rights, or any other issue that will inspire them. But they are not sitting idly by.”
–Roger Brooks, President and CEO of Facing History and Ourselves.
340 – “Ultimate futility of such attempts to compel coherence is the lesson of every such effort from the Roman drive to stamp out Christianity as a disturber of its pagan unity, the Inquisition, as a means to religious and dynastic unity, the Siberian exiles as a means to Russian unity, down to the fast failing efforts of our present totalitarian enemies. Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.”
–Robert H Jackson, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
233 – “Let it, then, be henceforth proclaimed to the world, that man’s conscience was created free; that he is no longer accountable to his fellow man for his religious opinions, being responsible therefore only to his God.”
-John Tyler, 10th President of the United States of America
1000 Quotes Project 