Hugo Black Quotes
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We believe trial judges confronted with disruptive, contumacious, stubbornly defiant defendants must be given sufficient discretion to meet the circumstances in each case.
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The Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to... bare the secrets of government and inform the people.
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The Framers of the Constitution knew that free speech is the friend of change and revolution. But they also knew that it is always the deadliest enemy of tyranny.
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I cannot agree with those who think of the Bill of Rights as an 18th century straitjacket, unsuited for this age...The evils it guards against are not only old, they are with us now, they exist today.
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I am for the First Amendment from the first word to the last. I believe it means what it says.
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The first ten amendments were proposed and adopted largely because of fear that Government might unduly interfere with prized individual liberties. The people wanted and demanded a Bill of Rights written into their Constitution. The amendments embodying the Bill of Rights were intended to curb all branches of the Federal Government in the fields touched by the amendments-Legislative, Executive, and Judicial.
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There can be no equal justice where the kind of trial a man gets depends on the amount of money he has.
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Laws are made to protect the trusting as well as the suspicious
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Freedom of speech means that you shall not do something to people either for the views they have, or the views they express, or the words they speak or write.
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The lesson which wars and depressions have taught is that if we want peace, prosperity and happiness at home we must help to establish them abroad.
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The interest of the people lies in being able to join organizations, advocate causes, and make political "mistakes" without being subjected to governmental penalties.
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The First Amendment's language leaves no room for inference that abridgments of speech and press can be made just because they are slight. That Amendment provides, in simple words, that "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." I read "no law . . . abridging" to mean no law abridging.
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Loyalty must arise spontaneously from the hearts of people who love their country and respect their government.
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When the power, prestige and financial support of government is placed behind a particular religious belief, the indirect coercive pressure upon religious minorities to conform to the prevailing officially approved religion is plain.
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The United States has a system of taxation by confession
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From the very beginning, our state and national constitutions and laws have laid great emphasis on procedural and substantive safeguards designed to assure fair trials before impartial tribunals in which every defendant stands equal before the law. This noble ideal cannot be realized if the poor man charged with crime has to face his accusers without a lawyer to assist him.
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Freedom to speak and write about public questions is as important to the life of our government as is the heart to the human body. In fact, this privilege is the heart of our government. If that heart be weakened, the result is debilitation; if it be stilled, the result is death.
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Words uttered under coercion are proof of loyalty to nothing but self-interest. Love of country must spring from willing hearts and free minds.
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No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance.
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The Press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people.
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In my judgment the people of no nation can lose their liberty so long as a Bill of Rights like ours survives and its basic purposes are conscientiously interpreted, enforced and respected so as to afford continuous protection against old, as well as new, devices and practices which might thwart those purposes. I fear to see the consequences of the Court's practice of substituting its own concepts of decency and fundamental justice for the language of the Bill of Rights as its point of departure in interpreting and enforcing that Bill of Rights.
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The very first condition of lasting happiness is that a life should be full of purpose, aiming at something outside self.
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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.
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No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion.