Anthony Kennedy Quotes

25 quotes in 452 categories

• There's substance to the point that sociological information is new. We have five years of information to weigh against 2,000 years of history or more.
• The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and injure those whom the state, by its marriage…
• The lessons of the First Amendment are as urgent in the modern world as the 18th Century when it was written. One timeless lesson is…
• The Constitution exists precisely so that opinions and judgments, including esthetic and moral judgments about art and literature, can be formed, tested, and expressed. What…
• First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right…
• At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of…
• Sometimes it is easy... to enhance your prestige by not exercising your responsibility, but that's not been the tradition of the court.
• As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom.
• Asking questions is an essential part of police investigation. In the ordinary sense a police officer is free to ask a person for identification without…
• We must never lose sight of the fact that the law has a moral foundation, and we must never fail to ask ourselves not only…
• Sometimes you don't know if you're Caesar about to cross the Rubicon or Captain Queeg cutting your own tow line.
• No one questions the validity, the urgency, the essentiality of the Voting Rights Act.
• The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is besides the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.
• There are some forty thousand children in California, according to the red brief, that live with same-sex parents, and they want their parents to have…
• The remedy for speech that is false is speech that is true. This is the ordinary course in a free society. The response to the…
• Democracy is something that you must learn each generation. It has to be taught.
• I do not think that we should select judges based on a particular philosophy as opposed to temperament, commitment to judicial neutrality and commitment to…
• In the political context fair means somebody that will vote for the unions or for the business. It can't mean that in the judicial context…
• The case for freedom, the case for our constitutional principles the case for our heritage has to be made anew in each generation. The work…
• You have plaintiffs attorneys, you have defense attorneys. So there is no unified bar that will protect a particular judge who has made a courageous…

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