Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm not on the court anymore, so no use looking for my philosophy. If somebody's waiting for that, they can wait for another justice.
There is a danger to judicial independence when people have no understanding of how the judiciary fits into the constitutional scheme.
Our Constitution was not written in the sands to be washed away by each wave of new judges blown in by each successive political wind.
There was a fear among the original framers that the federal government would be so strong that they might destroy the state militias.
I always prided myself on my ability to choose good clerks, and one of the key elements was whether I thought I would like the person.
Be willing to commit yourself to a course, perhaps a long and hard one, without being able to foresee exactly where you will come out.
We pay a price when we deprive children of the exposure to the values, principles, and education they need to make them good citizens.
The constant assumption runs throughout the law that the natural and spontaneous evolutions of habit fix the limits of right and wrong.
It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have been forged in controversies involving not very nice people.
The interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship.
Surely the fact that a uniformed police officer is wearing his hair below his collar will make him no less identifiable as a policeman.
Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us?
On the whole, I am on the side of the unregenerate who affirms the worth of life as an end in itself, as against the saints who deny it.
History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.
The First Amendment serves not only the needs of the polity but also those of the human spirit - a spirit that demands self-expression .
If we are to be as a shining city upon a hill, it will be because of our ceaseless pursuit of the constitutional ideal of human dignity.
The use of violence as an instrument of persuasion is therefore inviting and seems to the discontented to be the only effective protest.
When the whistle blows you have only a limited amount of time to do what you have to do. You either do it then or you don't do it at all.
The better life rests less on the prohibitions of the Ten Commandments and more on the parable of the Good Samaritan and the Golden Rule.
I find the workload of what I do sufficiently great that when the term of court starts, I undergo a sort of annual intellectual lobotomy.
Disapproval of homosexuality cannot justify invading the houses, hearts and minds of citizens who choose to live their lives differently.
Nearly all legislation involves a weighing of public needs as against private desires; and likewise a weighing of relative social values.
Let no American imagine that Zionism is inconsistent with patriotism. Multiple loyalties are objectionable only if they are inconsistent.
Modesty and reverence are no less virtues of freemen than the democratic feeling which will submit neither to arrogance nor to servility.
It must always be remembered that what the Constitution forbids is not all searches and seizures, but unreasonable searches and seizures.
We hold that the Constitution does not forbid the states minor intrusions into an individual's body under stringently limited conditions.
Pregnancy is of course confined to women, but it is in other ways significantly different from the typical covered disease or disability.
The states are not free, under the guise of protecting maternal health or potential life, to intimidate women into continuing pregnancies.
An unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment.
Go on, fair Science; soon to thee Shall Nature yield her idle boast; Her vulgar lingers formed a tree, But thou hast trained it to a post.
Due process requires some definite link, some minimum connection, between a state and the person, property or transaction it seeks to tax.
Sex, a great and mysterious motive force in human life, has indisputably been a subject of absorbing interest to mankind through the ages.
The dominant purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the widespread practice of government suppression of embarrassing information.
History showed that many people had lost their respect for any religion that had relied upon the support of government to spread its faith.
Reason means truth and those who are not governed by it take the chance that someday the sunken fact will rip the bottom out of their boat.
It was taken for granted that we had to make something of ourselves. Not much was said about it; it was just in the atmosphere of the home.
Ideas are indeed the most dangerous weapons in the world. Our ideas of freedom are the most powerful political weapons man has ever forged.
Liberty is often a heavy burden on a man. It involves the necessity for perpetual choice which is the kind of labor men have always dreaded.
I should like to see any kind of man, distinguishable from a gorilla, that some good and even pretty woman could not shape a husband out of.
Equality before the law in a true democracy is a matter of right. It cannot be a matter of charity or of favor or of grace or of discretion.
The Constitution requires that Congress treat similarly situated persons similarly, not that it engages in gestures of superficial equality.
Colonial history contains many examples of firearm regulations in urban areas that imposed obstacles to their use for protection of the home.
There is nothing like the dead cold hand of the past to take down our tumid egotism and lead us into the solemn flow of the life of our race.
Unfortunately civility is hard to codify or legislate, but you know it when you see it. It's possible to disagree without being disagreeable.
If parents instill a sense of civic-mindedness - and there is no better way to do that than by example - their children will probably follow.
It is true that as you have children, there are a good many months when you don't want to be working full-time. I agree that that's an issue.
Deciding not to decide is, of course, among the most important things done by the Supreme Court. It takes a lot of doing, but it can be done.
Power that controls the economy should be in the hands of elected representatives of the people, not in the hands of an industrial oligarchy.
One is entitled to say without qualification that the correlation between prior judicial experience and fitness for the Supreme Court is zero.
A free press stands as one of the great interpreters between the government and the people. To allow it to be fettered is to fetter ourselves.