Abe Fortas Quotes

Our birthright under the 1st Amendment is to foster the voices of dissent.

It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights ... at the school house door.

We do not debar Congress from all action upon the freedom of speech. Legislation that abridges that freedom is forbidden, but not legislation to enlarge and enrich it

Speech is an essential mechanism of democracy, for it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people. [...] The right of citizens to inquire, to hear, to speak, and to use information to reach consensus is a precondition to enlightened self-government and a necessary means to protect it. [...] By taking the right to speak from some and giving it to others, the Government deprives the disadvantaged person or class of the right to use speech to strive to establish worth, standing, and respect for the speaker’s voice. The Government may not by these means deprive the public of the right and privilege to determine for itself what speech and speakers are worthy of consideration. The First Amendment protects speech and speaker, and the ideas that flow from each.

The First Amendment defends all forms of speech including hate speech, which is why groups like Ku Klux Klan are allowed to utter their poisonous remarks.

As to the media, they are protected by the First Amendment, as they should be.

Worrying that banning flag desecration would inhibit free speech reveals a misunderstanding of the flag's fundamental nature.

The Supreme Court has held that code is speech. And it doesn't matter that it's done on a computer or done face to face or done in a newspaper, reporting the facts of the world is protected speech.

We need to defend absolutely the freedom of speech.

Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection.

We had a responsibility to represent all people whose 1st Amendment rights were at risk

The Constitution does not allow the unnecessary trammeling of free expression, even for the noblest of purposes.

We are the only country that allows and protects hate speech.

If there is a bedrock principle of the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.

Prior restraints on speech and publication are the most serious and least tolerable infringement on First Amendment Rights.

The censor is always quick to justify his function in terms that are protective of society. But the First Amendment, written in terms that are absolute, deprives the States of any power to pass on the value, the propriety, or the morality of a particular expression.

Political speech is indispensable to decision-making in a democracy, and this is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation. By taking the right to speak from some and giving it to others, the Government deprives the disadvantaged person or class of the right to use speech to strive to establish worth, standing, and respect for the speaker’s voice. The Government may not by these means deprive the public of the right and privilege to determine for itself what speech and speakers are worthy of consideration. The First Amendment protects speech and speaker, and the ideas that flow from each.

You cannot prevent me from talking. I am exercising my right to free speech.

We still have a First Amendment that protects your business and free speech.

Individuals have a right to freedom of speech.

It appears that some school officials, teachers, and parents have assumed that religious expression of any type is either inappropriate or forbidden altogether in public schools; however, nothing in the First Amendment converts our public schools into religion-free zones.

In order for the State in the person of school officials to justify prohibition of a particular expression of opinion, it must be able to show that its action was caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint.

Whatever doubt there may be as to the quality or purpose of our free speech we certainly have ample volumes in production.

I would bet there is no place in the United States where the First Amendment would survive intact.

The freedom of speech and the freedom of press, it's just precious man, it really is.