The Quotes canon
Sourced and curated.
Every quote has been curated by hand and carefully authenticated.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Legal writing14 quotes
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. — Hugo Black · 1947An unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment. — Hugo Black · 1964If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a State has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch. — Thurgood Marshall · 1969In other words, the First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from governmental intrusion. — William O. Douglas · 1965Whether, 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, Jr. · 1957All ideas having even the slightest redeeming social importance—unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinion—have the full protection of the guaranties... But implicit in the history of the First Amendment is the rejection of obscenity as utterly without redeeming social importance... We hold that obscenity is not within the area of constitutionally protected speech or press. — William J. Brennan, Jr. · 1957All 14 quotes →Political literature1 quote
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. — James Madison · 1789