William J. Brennan Jr. Quotes

There is no reason for the government to limit political speech.

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.

Free speech rights means that government officials are barred from creating lists of approved and disapproved political ideas and then using the power of the state to enforce those preferences.

Individuals have a right to freedom of speech.

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

The Supreme Court decision [Texas v. Johnson, 1989] does not in any way indicate the government is backing off from forcing the flag on people. They just don't want to look too dictatorial in the way they do it.

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.

There is no indication - either in the text of the Constitution or in our cases interpreting it - that a separate judicial category exists for the American flag alone. ... We decline ... therefore to create for the flag an exception to the … principles protected by the First Amendment.

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.

Criticism of government finds sanctuary in several portions of the 1st Amendment. It is part of the right of free speech. It embraces freedom of the press.

I think free speech is probably the coolest thing we have in this country, and again, you can label it hate speech and dismiss it, and then you're allowed to censor it.

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.

If Thomas Jefferson had heard us, he probably would have said, 'We shouldn't have free speech.'

There is never a shortage anywhere of lawyers eager to attack the First Amendment, as though it were nothing more than a clause in a lease from a crooked slumlord.

I'm as keen as the next person to preserve the right to free speech.

The Libertarian position on the freedom of speech is a strong support of freedom of speech, and we oppose government intervention in controlling what is or is not moral.

The 1st Amendment protects the right to speak, not the right to spend.

Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify suppression of free speech and assembly.

[E]rroneous statement … must be protected if the freedoms of expression are to be given the breathing space that they need ... to survive.

Implicit in the history of the 1st Amendment is the rejection of obscenity as utterly without redeeming social importance.

The liberty of the press would be an empty sound, and no man would venture to write on any subject however pure his purpose, without an attorney at one elbow and a counsel at the other. From minds thus subdued by the fear of punishment, there could issue no works of genius to expand the empire of human reason, nor any masterly compositions on the general nature of governmetn ...

Offensive or not, those who burn the flag to express their views are exercising a right that our founding generation fought a revolution to secure.

Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech

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

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.