William J. Brennan

If our free society is to endure, those who govern must recognize human dignity and accept the enforcement of constitutional limitations on…

— William J. Brennan

Capital punishment...treats members of the human race...as objects to be toyed with and discarded.

— William J. Brennan

Debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust and wide-open and that...may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on…

— 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…

— William J. Brennan

If a policeman must know the Constitution, then why not a planner?

— William J. Brennan

Our statute books gradually became laden with gross, stereotyped distinctions between the sexes and, indeed, throughout much of the 19th century the…

— 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…

— 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

The door of the Free Exercise Clause stands tightly closed against any government regulation of religious beliefs as such. Government may neither…

— William J. Brennan

One area of law more than any other besmirches the constitutional vision of human dignity. . . . The barbaric death penalty…

— William J. Brennan

“Thus, we consider this case against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should…

— 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…

— William J. Brennan

Our amended Constitution is the lodestar for our aspirations. Like every text worth reading, it is not crystalline. The phrasing is broad…

— William J. Brennan

The public schools are supported entirely, in most communities, by public funds-funds exacted not only from parents, nor alone from those who…

— William J. Brennan

The genius of the Constitution rests not in any static meaning it might have had in a world that is dead and…

— William J. Brennan

If our free society is to endure, and I know it will, those who govern must recognize that the Framers of the…

— William J. Brennan

While the machinery of law enforcement and indeed the nature of crime itself have changed dramatically since the Fourth Amendment became part…

— William J. Brennan

No doubt, there are those who believe that judges-and particularly dissenting judges-write to hear themselves say, as it were, I I I.…

— William J. Brennan

If we are to be as a shining city upon a hill, it will be because of our ceaseless pursuit of the…

— William J. Brennan

At bottom, the battle has been waged on moral grounds. The country has debated whether a society for which the dignity of…

— 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…

— William J. Brennan

The calculated killing of a human being by the state involves, by its very nature, an absolute denial of the executed person's…

— 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…

— William J. Brennan

The Bill of Rights never gets off the page and into the lives of most Americans.

— 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…

— William J. Brennan