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While democracy must have its organizations and controls, its vital breath is individual liberty.

— Charles Evans Hughes

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More quotes by Charles Evans Hughes

Our institutions were not devised to bring about uniformity of opinion; if they had we might well abandon hope.

No greater mistake can be made than to think that our institutions are fixed or may not be changed for the worse.

Conditions of Progress in Democratic Government (1909)

When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free.

The peril of this Nation is not in any foreign foe! We, the people, are its power, its peril, and its hope!

Conditions of Progress in Democratic Government (1909)

I think that it is a fallacy to suppose that helpful cooperation in the future will be assured by the attempted compulsion of an inflexible rule.

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The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.

John Adams A Defence of the Constitutions of Government (1787)

There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped.

Robert Anton Wilson

When we see a great man desiring power instead of his real goal we soon recognize that he is sick, or more precisely that his attitude to his work is sick.

Martin Buber What is Man? (1938)

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis God in the Dock (1970)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Charles Evans Hughes (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.