Felix Frankfurter Quotes

I live in America. I have the right to write whatever I want. And it's equaled by another right just as powerful: the right not to read it. Freedom of speech includes the freedom to offend people.

I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this. I would be very glad to tell you my life if you want to hear of it.

No human government has the right to enquire into private opinions ...

Americans cling tenaciously to the belief that they have the right to entire freedom of opinion and freedom of action so long as they do the work for which they are employed. The man who happens to be working in a factory has just as much right to his personal likes and dislikes as his employer; and the employee might as well resent any effort on the part of the man who happens to be at the time his superior in authority to tell him how he must regulate his personal private affairs.

Saying that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say.

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedoms.

We should silence anyone who opposes the right to freedom of speech.

The Constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself.

I think everybody has the right to a private life.

My private life... Nobody should care. I think it's weird.

I might have lived in England for the last several years, but I'm still an American citizen and I have not given up my right to privacy.

I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under.

This right to privacy ... doesn't exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution, this right that was created, it was created in Griswold–Griswold was the contraceptive case–and abortion. And now we're just extending it out. And the further you extend it out, the more ...this freedom actually intervenes and affects the family. You say, 'Well, it's my individual freedom.' Yes, but it destroys the basic unit of our society because it condones behavior that's antithetical to strong healthy families. Whether it's polygamy, whether it's adultery, where it's sodomy, all of those things, are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family.

Few decisions are more personal and intimate, more properly private, or more basic to individual dignity and autonomy than a woman's decision ... whether to end her pregnancy. A woman's right to make that choice freely is fundamental.

With the right of free speech goes the right of free silence.

The right to be let alone—the most comprehensive of rights and the most valued by civilized men.

The right to one's person may be said to be a right of complete immunity.

What a man thinks is of no concern to government.

Isn't this country wonderful because you get the right to believe what you want to? But where we all get into trouble is when some people feel they have the right to inflict their beliefs on others.

The right to be let alone is the underlying principle of the Constitution's Bill of Rights.

The United States government is the most powerful entity in the world, but even it does not have the power to force a single child to make any pledge or take any oath that he or she does not want to say or take.

The issue of wiretapping raises the issue of the balance between human liberty and the requirements of national security. I would say that the weight should be on the side of human liberty and that if human liberty is ever to be infringed, the demonstration on the national security side must be overwhelming.

A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim.

I have a right to nothing which another has a right to take away