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.
If we are made in some degree for others, yet in a greater are we made for ourselves. It were contrary to feeling and indeed ridiculous to suppose that a man had less rights in himself than one of his neighbors, or indeed all of them put together. This would be slavery, and not that liberty which the bill of rights has made inviolable, and for the preservation of which our government has been charged.
There will never be a perfectly good or bad world, because the very idea is a contradiction in terms.
I lost my sleep, and this is the greatest tragedy that can befall someone. It is much worse than sitting in prison.
History is neither written nor made without love or hate.
When we are in contact with our feelings and needs, we humans no longer make good slaves and underlings.
Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of government.
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