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A free press stands as one of the great interpreters between the government and the people. To allow it to be fettered is to fetter ourselves.

— George Sutherland Grosjean v. American Press Co (1936)

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Government

More quotes by George Sutherland

A nuisance may be merely a right thing in the wrong place — like a pig in the parlor instead of the barnyard.

If the provisions of the Constitution be not upheld when they pinch as well as when they comfort, they may as well be abandoned.

The liberty of the individual to do as he pleases, even in innocent matters, is not absolute. It must frequently yield to the common good.

For the saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished liberty is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while yet there was time.

The legal right of a taxpayer to decrease the amount of what otherwise would be his taxes, or altogether avoid them, by means which the law permits, cannot be doubted.

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Ill can he rule the great, that cannot reach the small.

Edmund Spenser The Faerie Queene (1589)

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

James Madison

Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other.

Leon Trotsky The Revolution Betrayed (1936)

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

John Adams

Attribution

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