Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.
The 5th Amendment is an old friend and a good friend. one of the great landmarks in men's struggle to be free of tyranny, to be decent and civilized.
It is anomalous to hold that in order to convict a man the police cannot extract by force what is in his mind, but can extract what is in his stomach.
Citizenship is no light trifle to be jeopardized any moment Congress decides to do so under the name of one of its general or implied grants of power.
The right to enjoy property without unlawful deprivation, no less that the right to speak out or the right to travel is, in truth, a "personal" right.
Commitment to the rule of law provides a basic assurance that people can know what to expect whether what they do is popular or unpopular at the time.
If you could say of any one individual that the court as an institution is the length and shadow of that individual, surely it would be John Marshall.
Under bad manners, as under graver faults, lies very commonly an overestimate of our special individuality, as distinguished from our generic humanity.
It is very grand to die in harness, but it is very pleasant to have the tight straps unbuckled and the heavy collar lifted from the neck and shoulders.
Do the best you can in every task, no matter how unimportant it may seem at the time. No one learns more about a problem than the person at the bottom.
Classifications and distinctions based on race or color have no moral or legal validity in our society. They are contrary to our constitution and laws.
The Fifth Amendment is an old friend and a good friend, one of the great landmarks in men's struggle to be free of tyranny, to be decent and civilized.
Needless, heedless, wanton and deliberate injury of the sort inflicted by Life's picture story is not an essential instrument of responsible journalism.
The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.
I am not a fan of President Trump, I should say. I wouldn't try to comment on every particular issue in which we disagree, but there are plenty of them.
Knowledge-it excites prejudices to call it science-is advancing as irresistibly, as majestically, as remorselessly as the ocean moves in upon the shore.
The Establishment Clause prohibits government from making adherence to a religion relevant in any way to a person's standing in the political community.
My father had a flat rule. He believed that every man's house was his castle. He had a flat rule: no man could come in his house without his permission.
What the Court really has refused to recognize is the fundamental interest all individuals have in controlling the nature of their intimate associations.
Requiring that an execution be relatively painless...actually undermines the very premise on which public approval of the retribution rationale is based.
Young feller, you will never appreciate the potentialities of the English language until you have heard a Southern mule driver search the soul of a mule.
It is possible to hold a faith with enough confidence to believe that what should be rendered to God does not need to be decided and collected by Caesar.
This Court is forever adding new stories to the temples of constitutional law, and the temples have a way of collapsing when one story too many is added.
I think it's inevitable that some of the court's decisions will be found by a segment of the public to be not the right decision or subject to criticism.
Criticism of government finds sanctuary in several portions of the 1st Amendment. It is part of the right of free speech. It embraces freedom of the press
Appellant constituted a legitimate class of one, and this provides a basis for Congress's decision to proceed with dispatch with respect to his materials.
Criticism of government finds sanctuary in several portions of the 1st Amendment. It is part of the right of free speech. It embraces freedom of the press.
I have been opposed to ceremonies at the White House. It gives the impression that the court is subordinate to the executive, which I think is quite wrong.
It is one of the greatest economic errors to put any limitation upon production.We have not the power to produce more than there is a potential to consume.
It is true that many Americans find the Commandments in accord with their personal beliefs. But we do not count heads before enforcing the First Amendment.
Whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest.
I would like to think that enough examples of non-compromise are going to start people thinking that there must be a better way to try to govern the country.
Privacy in one's associations... may in many circumstances be indispensable to freedom of association, particularly where a group espouses dissident beliefs.
One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish their purposes without resistance, is, by disarming the people, and making it an offense to keep arms.
And it is no less true, that personal security and private property rest entirely upon the wisdom, the stability, and the integrity of the courts of justice.
Ownership has been separated from control; and this separation has removed many of the checks which formerly operated to curb the misuse of wealth and power.
Some years ago I said in an opinion that if this country is a melting pot, then either the Afro-Americans didn't get in the pot or he didn't get melted down.
Security can only be achieved through constant change, through discarding old ideas that have outlived their usefulness and adapting others to current facts.
Freedom of speech means that you shall not do something to people either for the views they have, or the views they express, or the words they speak or write.
The graphic emphasis placed on those first lines is rather hard to square with the proposition that the monument expresses no particular religious preference.
He who is unconscious of the ties which connect him with every individual of his species feels no obligation to make sacrifices for their welfare or happiness.
The government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more. The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result.
Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience that hissed yesterday may applaud today, even for the same performance.
In revealing the workings of government that led to the Vietnam War, the newspapers nobly did precisely that which the Founders hoped and trusted they would do.
A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever may be its theory, must, in practice, be a bad government.
The struggle is always between the individual and his sacred right to express himself and the power structure that seeks conformity, suppression, and obedience.
To show a well-founded fear of persecution, an alien need not prove that it is more likely than not that he or she will be persecuted in his or her home country.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The United States has been called the melting pot of the world. But it seems to me that the colored man either missed getting into the pot or he got melted down.
The Framers of the Constitution knew that free speech is the friend of change and revolution. But they also knew that it is always the deadliest enemy of tyranny.