Best First Amendment Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 3

“If our constitution had followed the style of Saint Paul, the First Amendment might have concluded: "But the greatest of these is speech." In the darkness of tyranny, this is the key to the sunlight. If it is granted, all doors open. If it is withheld, none.”

Ifs Firsts Might Darkness Doors Style Keys Speech Constitution Saint Tyranny Granted Amendments Sunlight First Amendment Saint Paul

Book:Rights for Americans: the speeches of Robert F. Kennedy

Source: Rights for Americans: the speeches of Robert F. Kennedy

“It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.”

Men Speech Function Injury Justify Free Speech Freedom Of Speech Irrational Bondage First Amendment Assembly Freedom Of Thought Free Man Censorship In Books Limiting Freedom Of Expression Irrational Fear Freedom Of Assembly

Book:Brandeis at 150: the Louisville perspective : a sesquicentennial commemoration

Source: Brandeis at 150: the Louisville perspective : a sesquicentennial commemoration

“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.”

Firsts States Values Term Written Particular Expression Morality Function Absolutes Justify Amendments Freedom Of Speech First Amendment Protective Propriety

Author:William O. Douglas

“A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite.”

Source: Maxims of Washington: Political, Social, Moral, and Religious

“The First Amendment, I think, is the jewel of our Constitution.”

Thinking Firsts Constitution Amendments Jewels First Amendment

Author:Samuel Alito

“Our country as a whole, no less than the Hastings College of Law, values tolerance, cooperation, learning, and the amicable resolution of conflicts. But we seek to achieve those goals through "[a] confident pluralism that conduces to civil peace and advances democratic consensus-building," not by abridging First Amendment rights.”

“I have four children, and I want them to grow up in a country that has a working First Amendment.”

Want Firsts Children Country Grows Growing Up Four Our Children Amendments First Amendment

Author:Frank Zappa

“The First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights in the United States Constitution were being violated in Albany again and again - freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, the equal protection of the laws - I could count at least 30 such violations. Yet the president, sworn to uphold the Constitution, and all the agencies of the United States government at his disposal, were nowhere to be seen.”

“Despite the apparent absoluteness of the First Amendment, there are any number of ways of getting around it, ways that are known to any student of law. In general, the strategy is to manipulate the distinction between speech and action which is at bottom a distinction between inconsequential and consequential behavior.”

Way Firsts Action Law Numbers Known Students Speech Behavior Constitution Strategy Bottom Despite Distinction Amendments Manipulate First Amendment Inconsequential

Author:Stanley Fish

“Authoritative interpretations of the First Amendment guarantees have consistently refused to recognize an exception for any test of truth whether administered by judges, juries, or administrative officials and especially one that puts the burden of proving truth on the speaker.”

Firsts Judging Prove Tests Burden Officials Guarantees Exception Interpretation Amendments Speakers Freedom Of Speech Consistently First Amendment Jury Administrative

Author:William J. Brennan

“The First Amendment isn't about free thought and free opinion and free belief. The First Amendment is about free exercise: the carrying into practice of religious principles and beliefs and convictions.”

Firsts Belief Religious Opinion Principles Practice Exercise Conviction Amendments First Amendment Free Thought Free Opinion

Author:Alan Keyes

“Pat Buchanan... was fired by MSNBC for doing nothing more than voicing his rock-solid conservative thoughts on the otherwise failing network... The real message of the left is intolerance, zealotry, bigotry and hate. The left has no use for the First Amendment or the rest of the Constitution unless it fits their multicultural, euro-socialist agenda, which is failing all across Europe and everywhere it is practiced.”

Firsts Real Use Hate Left Failing Rocks Fit Messages Europe Constitution Conservative Agendas Bigotry Amendments Intolerance Socialist Doing Nothing First Amendment Euro Multicultural Zealotry

Author:Ted Nugent

“In the national debate about a serious issue, it is the expression of the minority's viewpoint that most demands the protection of the First Amendment. Whatever the better policy may be, a full and frank discussion of the costs and benefits of the attempt to prohibit the use of marijuana is far wiser than suppression of speech because it is unpopular.”

“Money, first and foremost, is a medium of communication, conveying the information we call 'price'. Government control of the money supply is censorship, a violation of the First Amendment. Inflation is a lie.”

Firsts Government Lying Information Communication Mediums Censorship Amendments Inflation Violation First Amendment Conveying

Author:L. Neil Smith

“Pulling a crystalline, cogent rule out of the murk of the court's First Amendment, public forum, and Establishment Clause doctrine is an act of creation too complicated for mere mortals.”

Firsts Creation Court Mere Complicated Doctrine Mortals Establishment Amendments Pulling First Amendment Forums Clauses Mere Mortals Establishment Clause

Author:Dahlia Lithwick

“I think the reality is that copyright law has for a very long time been a tiny little part of American jurisprudence, far removed from traditional First Amendment jurisprudence, and that made sense before the Internet. Now there is an unavoidable link between First Amendment interests and the scope of copyright law. The legal system is recognizing for the first time the extraordinary expanse of copyright regulation and its regulation of ordinary free-speech activities.”

“Evolutionism is a religious world view that is not supported by science, Scripture, popular opinion, or common sense. The exclusive teaching of this dangerous, mind-altering philosophy in tax supported schools, parks, museums, etc. is a clear violation of the First Amendment.”

“The "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.”

“The modern public school derived from a philosophy of freedom reflected in the First Amendment ... The non-sectarian or secular public school was the means of reconciling freedom in general with religious freedom.”

Firsts Mean Philosophy School Religious Atheism Modern Positive Atheism Amendments Secular Public School First Amendment Religious Freedom

Author:William J. Brennan

“But the United States is neither a Christian nation nor the exclusive home of any particular religious group. Non-Christians are not guests. We are as much hosts as any Mayflower-descendant Protestant. It is our home as well as theirs. And in a home with so many owners, there can be no official sectarian prayer. That is what the First Amendment is all about, and the first act by the new administration was in defiance of our Constitution.”

“Jefferson found in the religion phrases of the First Amendment no vague or fuzzy language to be bent or shaped or twisted as suited any Supreme Court Justice or White House incumbent. That amendment had built a wall, with the ecclesiastical estate on one side and the civil estate on the other.”

Source: Neither King Nor Prelate: Religion and the New Nation, 1776-1826

“I would not look with favor upon a President working to subvert the First Amendment's guarantees of religious liberty ... Neither do I look with favor upon those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by requiring a religious test - even by indirection.”

Firsts Looks President Religious Liberty Atheism Tests Constitution Positive Atheism Favors Guarantees Articles Amendments First Amendment Religious Liberty

Author:John F. Kennedy

“Today, the religion clauses of the First Amendment do not need to be fixed; they need to be followed.”

Needs Firsts Today Atheism Positive Atheism Fixed Amendments First Amendment Clauses

Author:Walter F. Mondale

“That wall, embodied in the First Amendment, is perhaps America's most important contribution to political progress on this planet.”

Firsts Important America Political Progress Atheism Planets Wall Positive Atheism Contribution Amendments First Amendment Important Contributions

Author:Lowell P. Weicker, Jr.

“I love the protest signs protected by the First Amendment - some of them humorous, some of them passionate, some factual, some entirely incorrect - all of them free ideas.”

Firsts Ideas Humorous Passionate Protest Amendments Protected First Amendment Factual

Author:Jennifer Granholm

“We often seem to be swimming through such a miasma of sexual violence - in advertising, television programming, heavy metal, rap, films, and worst of all, in the home - that even First Amendment absolutists sometimes daydream about how nice it would be to have government-as-nanny just outlaw all this effluent.”

“There is nothing as dangerous as an unembodied principle: no matter what blood flows, the principle comes first. The First Amendment absolutists operate precisely on unembodied principle.”

Firsts Matter Principles Blood Dangerous Flow No Matter What Amendments First Amendment Blood Flow

Author:Andrea Dworkin

“In the First Amendment to the Constitution, the Founders made it clear that this was not to be a sky-god nation with a national religion like that of England, from whom we had just separated. It is curious how little understood this amendment is-yes, everyone has a right to worship any god he chooses but he does not have the right to impose his beliefs on others who do not happen to share in his superstitions and taboos.”

Firsts Littles Doe Made Happens Religion Belief Nations Clear Sky Share Worship Understood Constitution England Curious Made It Amendments Superstitions Founders First Amendment Taboo

Author:Gore Vidal

“This separation was absolute in our original Republic. But the sky-godders do not give up easily. In the 1950s they actually got the phrase In God We Trust onto the currency, in direct violation of the First Amendment.”

Giving Firsts Religion Sky Giving Up Direct Absolutes Originals Separation Phrases Republic Amendments Currency Not Giving Up Violation First Amendment Do Not Give Up God We Trust

Author:Gore Vidal

“In fact, it's the greatest threat to liberty of all kinds, whether it is freedom of religion, whether it is freedom of speech, whether it is freedom of the press, whether it is freedom of association, all of the rights that are enshrined in the First Amendment are threatened by the active, aggressive homosexual lobby and the homosexual agenda.”

“Our Founding Fathers were the first to articulate the reasons for their First Amendment, the same reasons given by Learned Hand, and by Justice Brennan in New York Times v. Sullivan . It is a lesson we keep forgetting and must relearn in each succeeding generation.”

Firsts Reason Hands Father Given Justice Forget Generations New York Lessons Succeed Amendments Freedom Of Speech Founding First Amendment New York Times Our Founding Fathers

Author:Gilbert S. Merritt, Jr.

“There is no separation of church and state. Modern US Supreme Courts have raped the Constitution and raped the Christian faith and raped the churches by misinterpreting what the Founders had in mind in the First Amendment to the Constitution.”

“Let them all believe whatever they want. It is pointless to go on radio shows and wrangle over mystical claims. However, such claims must not be imposed on captive children in government-owned schools. That is prohibited by the separation of church and state, a core principle in the First Amendment in America's Bill of Rights.”

“The First Amendment says keep government out of religion. It doesn't say keep religion out of government.”

Firsts Government Amendments First Amendment

Author:Rand Paul

“The First Amendment is not an altar on which we must sacrifice our children, families, and community standards. Obscene material that is not protected by the First Amendment can and must be prohibited.”

Firsts Children Community Sacrifice Materials Standards Our Children Amendments Protected Altars First Amendment Obscene

Author:Orrin Hatch

“I remember when TV networks believed in the First Amendment. It is a messed up situation when Miley Cyrus gets a laugh, and Phil Robertson gets suspended.”

Firsts Remember Situation Laughing Tvs Amendments Remember When First Amendment Suspended Messed Up Miley

Author:Bobby Jindal

“For the first 200 years of our nation's history, corporations were never defined by the courts as persons with free speech rights under the First Amendment. Only in recent years have we witnessed this corporate takeover of our First Amendment, culminating in the Citizens United ruling.”

Years Firsts Persons Nations United Rights Citizens Speech Court Defined Corporate Corporations Amendments Free Speech Ruling First Amendment Takeovers Citizens United

Author:John Bonifaz

“I must acknowledge God. It says so in the Constitution of Alabama. It says so in the First Amendment of the Constitution.”

Firsts Constitution Scary Acknowledge Amendments First Amendment Alabama

Author:Roy Moore

“I understand that unless you have a government of laws, rather than a government of people, you cannot protect dissent. And I understand, as a woman who probably would have been burned in the marketplace for witchcraft only about 200 years ago, that I need the First Amendment more than anybody does. And that even if I am repelled by child pornography or Bob Guccione's productions, that I have to protect those things, because essentially it's in my self-interest to do so.”

“The history of our nation is intertwined with a certain religious tradition, and that the First Amendment was not intended to result in the complete exclusion of religious beliefs from our public classrooms.”

Firsts Christian Certain Belief Nations Religious Results Tradition Classroom Amendments First Amendment Religious Belief Exclusion Intertwined Religious Traditions

Book:The De-valuing of America: The Fight for Our Culture and Our Children

Source: The De-valuing of America: The Fight for Our Culture and Our Children

“Under the First Amendment's prohibition of the establishment of religion, the Court has steadily made religion a matter for the private individual by driving it out of the public arena.”

Firsts Made Matter Christian Individual Religious Court Driving Establishment Amendments Arena First Amendment Prohibition

Author:Robert Bork

“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.”

Firsts School Christian Parent Religious Teacher Expression Type Officials Zone Amendments Forbidden Public School First Amendment Inappropriate

Book:Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 1995

Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 1995

“To the ACLU, the First Amendment speaks more directly to freedom from religion than it does to freedom of religion.”

Firsts Doe Christian Speak Religious Amendments First Amendment Freedom Of Religion

Author:William Anthony Donohue

“Concerning First Amendment fetishism - A federal subsidy for a photo of a crucifix suspended in a jar of urine is fine, but religious figures on stamps are offensive.”

Firsts Christian Religious Figures Fine Amendments Offensive Stamps First Amendment Jars Suspended Subsidies

Author:Don Feder

“John Marshall's warning that the power to tax is the power to destroy has taken on far greater meaning... more specifically, the power of the Internal Revenue Service is threatening to destroy the freedom of religion , guaranteed by the First Amendment. As part of that guarantee, Congress has granted tax exemptions for churches to avoid excessive interference in their religious activities.”

“Lately the First Amendment has been interpreted to deny equal protection of the law to those who believe in God. The Constitution established freedom for religion, not freedom from religion!”

Firsts Believe Has Beens Christian Law Religious Equal Constitution Deny Protection Believe In God Amendments First Amendment Freedom Of Religion Equal Protection

Author:Jack Kemp

“Since the writing of our Constitution, our religious liberties have been systematically threatened and whittled away by Supreme Court justices who interpret the First Amendment as a prohibition against religious activity on public property.”

Source: A Nation Without a Conscience

“The First Amendment was not intended to withdraw the Christian religion as a whole from the protection of Congress.”

Firsts Whole Christian Religious Congress Protection Amendments First Amendment

Author:Joseph Story

“The First Amendment is now being used by the secularists of our day as a cattle prod to herd conservative religious people out of the public life of the nation and into, as others have put it, a religious ghetto.”

People Firsts Christian Used Nations Religious Conservative Amendments First Amendment Herds Public Life Ghetto Cattle

Author:Pat Swindall

“The net effect of the distortion of the First Amendment is to require that wherever the state is, religion must be excluded.”

Firsts States Christian Religious Effects Amendments First Amendment Distortion Excluded

Author:Pat Swindall

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First Amendment Quotes