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 Copy Share Image
If our free society is to endure, those who govern must recognize human dignity and accept the enforcement of constitutional limitations on their power… — William J. Brennan Copy Share Image
Capital punishment...treats members of the human race...as objects to be toyed with and discarded. — William J. Brennan Copy Share Image
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… — William J. Brennan Copy Share Image
The modern public school derived from a philosophy of freedom reflected in the First Amendment ... The non-sectarian or secular public school was the… — William J. Brennan Copy Share Image
If a policeman must know the Constitution, then why not a planner? — William J. Brennan Copy Share Image
Our statute books gradually became laden with gross, stereotyped distinctions between the sexes and, indeed, throughout much of the 19th century the position of… — William J. Brennan Copy Share Image
We cannot let colorblindness become myopia which masks the reality that many "created equal" have been treated within our lifetimes as inferior both by… — William J. Brennan Copy Share Image
After each perceived security crisis ended, the United States has remorsefully realized that the abrogation of civil liberties was unnecessary. — William J. Brennan Copy Share Image
The door of the Free Exercise Clause stands tightly closed against any government regulation of religious beliefs as such. Government may neither compel affirmation… — William J. Brennan Copy Share Image
One area of law more than any other besmirches the constitutional vision of human dignity. . . . The barbaric death penalty violates our… — William J. Brennan Copy Share Image
“Thus, we consider this case against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited,… — William J. Brennan Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Our amended Constitution is the lodestar for our aspirations. Like every text worth reading, it is not crystalline. The phrasing is broad and the… — William J. Brennan Copy Share Image
The public schools are supported entirely, in most communities, by public funds-funds exacted not only from parents, nor alone from those who hold particular… — William J. Brennan Copy Share Image
The genius of the Constitution rests not in any static meaning it might have had in a world that is dead and gone, but… — William J. Brennan Copy Share Image
