Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When the commission finds that a pig has entered the parlor, the exercise of its regulatory power does not depend on proof the pig is obscene.
The practice of executing such offenders is a relic of the past and is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency in a civilized society.
Behind every argument is somebody's ignorance. Rediscover the foundation of truth and the purpose and causes of dispute immediately disappear.
To brag little, to lose well, / To crow gently if in luck, / To pay up, to own up, / To shut up if beaten, / Are the virtues of a sportingman.
A person's mere propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activity does not give rise to probable cause to search that person.
We have enjoyed so much freedom for so long that we are perhaps in danger of forgetting how much blood it cost to establish the Bill of Rights.
Words uttered under coercion are proof of loyalty to nothing but self-interest. Love of country must spring from willing hearts and free minds.
The joy of life is to put out one's power in some natural and useful or harmless way. There is no other. And the real misery is not to do this.
My hope is that 10 years from now, after I've been across the street at work for a while, they'll all be glad they gave me that wonderful vote.
After each perceived security crisis ended, the United States has remorsefully realized that the abrogation of civil liberties was unnecessary.
Use of a mentally ill person's involuntary confession is antithetical to the notion of fundamental fairness embodied in the due process clause.
We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; where there are no secrets from government.
Murder has foreseeable consequences. When it happens, it is always to distinct individuals, and after it happens, other victims are left behind.
The wind blows out, the bubble dies; The spring entomb'd in autumn lies; The dew dries up; the star is shot; The flight is past, and man forgot.
The very purpose of a bill of rights is to withdraw certain subjects from...political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities.
I think the important thing about my appointment is not that I will decide cases as a woman, but that I am a woman who will get to decide cases.
No longer is the female destined solely for the home and the rearing of the family and only the male for the marketplace and the world of ideas.
History teaches us that the past is full of luck and chance and circumstance, without any one of which, life could have been radically different.
If a State refused to let religious groups use facilities open to others, then it would demonstrate not neutrality but hostility toward religion.
Lawlessness is lawlessness. Anarchy is anarchy is anarchy. Neither race nor color nor frustration is an excuse for either lawlessness or anarchy.
Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy. Make it. Protect it. Pass it on.
If the right to privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion.
Although it may not be a castle, [it is the] functional equivalent of a hotel room, a vacation and retirement home or a hunting and fishing cabin.
The world presents enough problems if you believe it to be a world of law and order; do not add to them by believing it to be a world of miracles.
There is in all men a demand for the superlative, so much so that the poor devil that has no other way of reaching it attains it by getting drunk.
Abortion is inherently different from other medical procedures because no other procedure involves the purposeful termination of a potential life.
When the Supreme Court moved to Washington in 1800, it was provided with no books, which probably accounts for the high quality of early opinions.
If I stumbled badly in doing the job, I think it would have made life more difficult for women, and that was a great concern of mine and still is.
I've always said that at the end of the day, on a legal issue, I think a wise old woman and a wise old man are going to reach the same conclusion.
For a justice of this ultimate tribunal [the U.S. Supreme Court], the opportunity for self-discovery and the occasion for self-revelation is great.
The lesson which wars and depressions have taught is that if we want peace, prosperity and happiness at home we must help to establish them abroad.
Piety, religion, and morality are intimately connected with the well being of that state, and indispensable to the administration of civil justice.
Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty.
Abortion is inherently different from other medical procedures, because no other procedure involves the purposeful termination of a potential life.
We dedicated ourselves to a powerful idea - organic law rather than naked power. There seems to be universal acceptance of that idea in the nation.
The First Amendment makes confidence in the common sense of our people and in the maturity of their judgement the great postulate of our democracy.
The rules of evidence in the main are based on experience, logic, and common sense, less hampered by history than some parts of the substantive law.
The day that this country ceases to be free for irreligion it will cease to be free for religion - except for the sect that can win political power.
Had the jury convicted on proper instructions it would be the end of the matter. But juries are not bound by what seems inescapable logic to judges.
Well, it's a little odd, the path I took, because when I was young, I wanted to be a cattle rancher. That was what I knew and that was what I liked.
We can always stick together when we are losing, but tend to find means of breaking up when we're winning. In Grace under Pressure, by Hastie, 1984.
Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence.
It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.
The risk of racial prejudice infecting a capital sentencing proceeding is especially serious in light of the complete finality of the death sentence.
Who does not delight in oratory? How we gather to hear even an ordinary speaker! How often is a jury swayed and controlled by the appeals of counsel!
Legislatures not driven to desperation by the problems of public education may be able to see the threat in vouchers negotiable in sectarian schools.
The line must follow some direction of policy, whether rooted in logic or experience. Lines should not be drawn simply for the sake of drawing lines.
The eternal struggle in the law between constancy and change is largely a struggle between history and reason, between past reason and present needs.
General propositions do not decide concrete cases. The decision will depend on a judgment or intuition more subtle than any articulate major premise.
The ban directly hampers the partys ability to spread its message and hamstrings voters seeking to inform themselves about the candidates and issues.