Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
We current justices read the Constitution in the only way that we can: as 20th-century Americans.
William J. Brennan
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
William J. Brennan
Current
Currents
Constitution
Americans
Century
Justice
Read
Justices
Way
Adaptability
More quotes by William J. Brennan
You in the media ought to be ashamed of yourselves to call the provisions and the guarantees of the Bill of Rights 'Technicalities'. They're not. We are what we are because of those guarantees.
William J. Brennan
The Constitution was framed fundamentally as a bulwark against governmental power, and preventing the arbitrary administration of punishment is a basic ideal of any society that purports to be governed by the rule of law.
William J. Brennan
Whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest.
William J. Brennan
It is tempting to pretend that minorities on death row share a fate in no way connected to our own, that our treatment of them sounds no echoes beyond the chambers in which they die. Such an illusion is ultimately corrosive, for the reverberations of injustice are not so easily confined.
William J. Brennan
The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to 'create' rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting.
William J. Brennan
Perhaps the bleakest fact of all is that the death penalty is imposed not only in a freakish and discriminatory manner, but also in some cases upon defendants who are actually innocent.
William J. Brennan
Law cannot stand aside from the social changes around it.
William J. Brennan
It is difficult to understand precisely what the state hopes to achieve by promoting the creation and perpetuation of a subclass of illiterates within our boundaries, surely adding to the problems and costs of unemployment, welfare and crime.
William J. Brennan
Consequences flow from a justice's interpretation in a direct and immediate way. A judicial decision respecting the incompatibility of Jim Crow with a constitutional guarantee of equality is not simply a contemplative exercise in defining the shape of a just society. It is an order
William J. Brennan
The modern public school derived from a philosophy of freedom reflected in the First Amendment ... The non-sectarian or secular public school was the means of reconciling freedom in general with religious freedom.
William J. Brennan
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.
William J. Brennan
If the right to privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion.
William J. Brennan
If a policeman must know the Constitution, then why not a planner?
William J. Brennan
After each perceived security crisis ended, the United States has remorsefully realized that the abrogation of civil liberties was unnecessary.
William J. Brennan
We cannot let colorblindness become myopia which masks the reality that many created equal have been treated within our lifetimes as inferior both by the law and by their fellow citizens.
William J. Brennan
Authoritative interpretations of the First Amendment guarantees have consistently refused to recognize an exception for any test of truth whether administered by judges, juries, or administrative officials and especially one that puts the burden of proving truth on the speaker.
William J. Brennan
Religious conflict can be the bloodiest and cruelest conflicts that turn people into fanatics.
William J. Brennan
We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so, we dilute the freedom this cherished emblem represents.
William J. Brennan
The quest for freedom, dignity, and the rights of man will never end.
William J. Brennan
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.
William J. Brennan