The ultimate foundation of a free society is the binding tie of cohesive sentiment.
Interpretation
A free society relies on the shared values and emotional connections among its members.
Felix Frankfurter's quote highlights the importance of a shared emotional bond or sentiment among individuals in a society. He suggests that true freedom is not just about laws and governance, but also about the relationships and connections that people have with one another, which create a sense of unity and cohesion necessary for a thriving community.
In practice
During a discussion on civil rights, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of social bonds.
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.
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.
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.
The proper role of government is exactly what John Stuart Mill said in the middle of the 19th century in "On Liberty." The proper role of government is to prevent other people from harming an individual. Government, he said, never has any right to interfere with an individual for that individual's own good.
I saw a man clothed with rags . . . a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back.
Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.
It is good that war is so horrible, or we might grow to like it.
Well, I think the worst part about tribalism is its tendency to fundamentalize, and if I can fight fundamentalism in any of its forms I'm happy.
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine.
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