Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. . . If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law: it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justified the means--to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal--would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this court should resolutely set its face.

-BRANDEIS, J., dissenting, Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 485 (1928)

I will look, your Honor, and endeavor to find a precedent, if you require it; though it would seem to be a pity that the Court should lose the honor of being the first to establish so just a rule.

-RUFUS CHOATE. See Brown, Works of Choate 292 (1862)

"When government accepts responsibility for people, then people no longer take responsibility for themselves."

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- Thomas Jefferson

�Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.�

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