Hugo Black Quotes

Anyone who takes it upon himself ... to break a bad law, thereby authorizes everyone else to break the good ones.

If the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech and press is to mean anything, it must allow protests even against the moral code that the standard of the day sets for the community.

I want to say 'I Shot The Police' but the government would have made a fuss so I said 'I Shot The Sheriff' insteadbut it's the same idea: justice.

I think that, as Americans, we should never forget that when we tamper with freedom of speech, it is a very sensitive issue that affects all of our constitutional rights and privileges.

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

I'm not afraid of the press or the Militia.

Undermine their pompous authority, reject their moral standards, make anarchy and disorder your trademarks. Cause as much chaos and disruption as possible but don't let them take you ALIVE.

Either the law exists, or it does not.

I really rebel against authority.

If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

Do we really want the FCC to conduct investigations and issue warnings to radio talk show hosts nationwide who simply discuss the important issues of our time? The Constitution says 'freedom of speech,' not 'freedom of government-approved fair speech in rationed amounts.'

There's no rules. Show me the rule book.

I am interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos-especially activity that seems to have no meaning. It seems to me to be the road toward freedom... Rather than starting inside, I start outside and reach the mental through the physical.

What is crucial is there be laws.

The very idea of the law in a constitutional republic involves the requisite that it be a rule, a guide, uniform, fixed and equal, for all, till changed by the same high political power which made it. This is what entitles it to its sovereign weight.

There is nothing more American than dissent.

If government were free to suppress disfavored speech by preventing potential speakers from being paid, there would not be much left of the 1st Amendment.

As soon as control eases, there is chaos. [Yi fang, jiu luan.]

We are not rebels. Rebels defy authority and break laws at will.

If one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can. That means first chaos, then tyranny.

Freedom cannot long service where defiance and contempt are tolerated or condoned. That is why our country can ill-afford the binge of so called "civil disobedience" which has erupted on the streets ... and across the campuses of many colleges and universities.

If the 1st Amendment means anything, it means that the state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch.

If you care for the quality of life in our American democracy, then you have to be for censorship.

Western democracy included individual liberty, as well as equality. The frontiersman was impatient of restraints. He knew how to preserve order, even in the absence of legal authority…. the individual was not ready to submit to complex regulations. Population was sparse, there was no multitude of jostling interests, as in older settlements, demanding an elaborate system of personal restraints. Society became atomic. There was a reproduction of the primitive idea of the personality of the law, a crime was more an offense against the victim than a violation of the law of the land.