Abe Fortas Quotes

Judging is a lonely job in which a man is, as near as may be, an island entire.

Government...may not be hostile to any religion or to the advocacy of no-religion; and it may not aid, foster, or promote one religion or religious theory against another... The First Amendment mandates governmental neutrality.

Needless, heedless, wanton and deliberate injury of the sort inflicted by Life's picture story is not an essential instrument of responsible journalism.

Dissent and dissenters have no monopoly on freedom. They must tolerate opposition. They must accept dissent from their dissent.

The story of man is the history, first, of the acceptance and imposition of restraints necessary to permit communal life; and second, of the emancipation of the individual within that system of necessary restraints.

It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.

For a justice of this ultimate tribunal [the U.S. Supreme Court], the opportunity for self-discovery and the occasion for self-revelation is great.