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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

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William J. Brennan
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More quotes by William J. Brennan

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The calculated killing of a human being by the state involves, by its very nature, an absolute denial of the executed person's humanity. The most vile murder does not, in my view, release the state from constitutional restraint on the destruction of human dignity.
William J. Brennan
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There can be no doubt that our Nation has had a long and unfortunate history of sex discrimination. Traditionally, such discrimination was rationalized by an attitude of romantic paternalism which, in practical effect, put women, not on a pedestal, but in a cage.
William J. Brennan
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Punishing desecration of the flag dilutes the very freedom that makes this emblem so revered.
William J. Brennan
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Sex and obscenity are not synonymous. Obscene material is material which deals with sex in a manner appealing to prurient interest.
William J. Brennan
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Sex, a great and mysterious motive force in human life, has indisputably been a subject of absorbing interest to mankind through the ages.
William J. Brennan
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Religious conflict can be the bloodiest and cruelest conflicts that turn people into fanatics.
William J. Brennan
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No doubt, there are those who believe that judges - and particularly dissenting judges - write to hear themselves say, as it were, 'I, I, I.' And no doubt, there are also those who believe that judges are, like Joan Didion, primarily engaged in the writing of fiction. I cannot agree with either of those propositions.
William J. Brennan
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Capital punishment...treats members of the human race...as objects to be toyed with and discarded.
William J. Brennan
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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
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After each perceived security crisis ended, the United States has remorsefully realized that the abrogation of civil liberties was unnecessary.
William J. Brennan
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More fundamentally, however, the answer to petitioners' objection is that there can be no impairment of executive power, whether on the state or federal level, where actions pursuant to that power are impermissible under the Constitution. Where there is no power, there can be no impairment of power.
William J. Brennan
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Use of a mentally ill person's involuntary confession is antithetical to the notion of fundamental fairness embodied in the due process clause.
William J. Brennan
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If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.
William J. Brennan
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At bottom, the battle has been waged on moral grounds. The country has debated whether a society for which the dignity of the individual is the supreme value can, without a fundamental inconsistency, follow the practice of deliberately putting one of its members to death.
William J. Brennan
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The framers knew that liberty is a fragile thing, and so should we.
William J. Brennan
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We current justices read the Constitution in the only way that we can: as 20th-century Americans.
William J. Brennan
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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
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The law is not an end in itself, nor does it provide ends. It is preeminently a means to serve what we think is right.
William J. Brennan
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Debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust and wide-open and that...may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.
William J. Brennan
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Law cannot stand aside from the social changes around it.
William J. Brennan