The accretion of dangerous power does not come in a day. It does come, however slowly, from the generative force of unchecked disregard of the restrictions that fence in even the most disinterested assertion of authority.
Interpretation
Power accumulates gradually through the neglect of limits on authority.
This quote by Felix Frankfurter highlights how dangerous power can increase over time when there is a lack of respect for the boundaries that should govern authority. It suggests that even seemingly benign forms of authority can become harmful if they are allowed to grow without oversight or accountability, emphasizing the importance of maintaining checks and balances in governance and leadership.
In practice
In a political speech discussing the importance of accountability in government.
Ultimately there can be no freedom for self unless it is vouchsafed for others; there can be no security where there is fear, and a democratic society presupposes confidence and candor in the relations of men with one another and eager collaboration for the larger ends of life instead of the pursuit of petty, selfish or vainglorious aims.
Democracy is always a beckoning goal, not a safe harbor. For freedom is an unremitting endeavor, never a final achievement.
Without a free press there can be no free society. That is axiomatic. However, freedom of the press is not an end in itself but a means to the end of a free society. The scope and nature of the constitutional guarantee of the freedom of the press are to be viewed and applied in that light.
The words of the Constitution... are so unrestricted by their intrinsic meaning or by their history or by tradition or by prior decisions that they leave the individual Justice free, if indeed they do not compel him, to gather meaning not from reading the Constitution but from reading life.
Litigation is the pursuit of practical ends, not a game of chess.
As a member of this court I am not justified in writing my private notions of policy into the Constitution, no matter how deeply I may cherish them or how mischievous I may deem their disregard.
Despotism has so often been established in the name of liberty that experience should warn us to judge parties by their practices rather than their preachings.
The image of myself which I try to create in my own mind in order that I may love myself is very different from the image which I try to create in the minds of others in order that they may love me.
Christian life means sacrifice.
A thing long expected takes the form of the unexpected when at last it comes.
Anti-Semitism is a horrible disease from which nobody is immune, and it has a kind of evil fascination that makes an enlightened person draw near the source of infection, supposedly in a scientific spirit, but really to sniff the vapors and dally with the possibility.
My country right or wrong; when right, to keep her right; when wrong, to put her right.
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