Harlan F. Stone

Thus viewed, law as it exists in the modern community may be conveniently, although perhaps not comprehensively, defined as the sum total of all those rules of conduct for which there is state sanction.

— Harlan F. Stone

Just what instrumentalities of either a state or the federal government are exempt from taxation by the other cannot be stated in terms of universal application.

— Harlan F. Stone

To say that only those businesses affected with a public interest may be regulated is but another way of stating that all those businesses which may be regulated are affected with a public interest.

— Harlan F. Stone

There is grim irony in speaking of the freedom of contract of those who, because of their economic necessities, give their service for less than is needful to keep body and soul together.

— Harlan F. Stone

History teaches us that there have been but few infringements of personal liberty by the state which have not been justified, as they are here, in the name of righteousness and the public good, and few which have not been directed, as they are now, at politically helpless minorities.

— Harlan F. Stone

The guarantees of civil liberty are but guarantees of freedom of the human mind and spirit and of reasonable freedom and opportunity to express them...The very essence of the liberty which they guarantee is the freedom of the individual from compulsion as to what he shall think and what he shall say...

— Harlan F. Stone

Words, especially those of a constitution, are not to be read with such stultifying narrowness.

— Harlan F. Stone

The right to participate in the choice of representatives for Congress includes, as we have said, the right to cast a ballot and to have it counted at the general election whether for the successful candidate or not.

— Harlan F. Stone

Distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.

— Harlan F. Stone

Democracy cannot survive without the guidance of a creative minority.

— Harlan F. Stone