Sometimes it is easy... to enhance your prestige by not exercising your responsibility, but that's not been the tradition of the court.

Democracy is something that you must learn each generation. It has to be taught.

The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity.

The court decided, based on its reading of our precedents, that the effects test of Lemon is violated whenever government action creates an identification of the state with a religion, or with religion in general, ...or when the effect of the governmental action is to endorse one religion over another, or to endorse religion in general.

As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom.

The Constitution exists precisely so that opinions and judgments, including esthetic and moral judgments about art and literature, can be formed, tested, and expressed. What the Constitution says is that these judgments are for the individual to make, not for the Government to decree, even with the mandate or approval of a majority. Technology expands the capacity to choose; and it denies the potential of this revolution if we assume the Government is best positioned to make these choices for us.

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were.