Harold J. Laski: “And they made possible the speculative ferment which showed that England was at last awake to the meaning of Montesquieu…”

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.

To deny novelty or grievance a right of expression is a certain, if, indeed, an ultimate, validation of the truth they contain.

The only way to deal with novelty is to understand it, and the only way to deal with grievance is to seek a remedy for the complaint it embodies.

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.