Harold J. Laski: “For, after all, experience has shown that the State is built upon the consciences of men.”

The essence of the persecuting position is always that the persecutor has hold of truth and that he would betray its service by allowing it to be questioned.

Ultimately, that denial is always made upon the same ground: it is insisted that the doctrines or practices attacked are subversive of the civil order.

He is able, accordingly, to indulge in the twofold luxury not only of preserving his own authority, but also of assisting the persons attacked to enter, if they so choose, the way of truth.

Each age finds that the incidence of freedom is significant at some special point, and there, once more, the lesson of freedom has to be learned.