I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death… - Oliver Wendell Holmes

We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe.

I look at man through Malthus's glasses –as like flies– here swept away by pestilence – there multiplying unduly and paying for it. I think morals are not the last word but only a check for varying intensity upon force, which seems to me likely to remain the ultimate as far as I can look ahead.

I have never heard anyone profess indifference to a boat race. Why should you row a boat race? Why endure long months of pain in preparation of a fierce half hour, or even six minutes, that will leave you all but dead? Does anyone ask the question? Is there anyone who would not go through all its costs, and more, for the moment when anguish breaks into triumph - or even for the glory of having nobly lost? Is life less than a boat race? If a man will give all the blood in his body to win the one, will he not spend all the might of his soul to prevail in the other?

Deep-seated preferences cannot be argued about — you cannot argue a man into liking a glass of beer — and therefore, when differences are sufficiently far reaching, we try to kill the other man rather than let him have his way. But that is perfectly consistent with admitting that, so far as appears, his grounds are just as good as ours.