Harlan Fiske Stone

“The history of liberty has largely been the history of observance of procedural safeguards.”

“The sober second thought of the community is an excellent substitute for a court.”

“Courts are not the only agency of government that must be assumed to have capacity to govern.”

“While it is true that the court has the power to and does overrule its own decisions, we should do so only with the greatest of caution.”

“It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error.”

“The law itself is on trial in every case as well as the cause before it.”

“Freedom of the press is not an end in itself but a means to the end of a free society.”

“It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”

“The only check upon our own exercise of power is our own sense of self-restraint.”