People look at rights as if they were muscles — the more you exercise them, the better they get.

If you think aficionados of a living Constitution want to bring you flexibility, think again. You think the death penalty is a good idea? Persuade your fellow citizens to adopt it. You want a right to abortion? Persuade your fellow citizens and enact it. That's flexibility.

If it were up to me, I would put in jail every sandal-wearing, scruffy-bearded weirdo who burns the American flag. But I am not king.

In a big family the first child is kind of like the first pancake. If it's not perfect, that's okay, there are a lot more coming along.

Power tends to corrupt. But the power in Washington resides in Congress, if it wants to use it. It can do anything-it can stop the Vietnam War. It can make its will felt, if it can ever get its act together to do anything.

I even accept for the sake of argument that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged.

More importantly, the Court forgets that ours is a government of laws and not of men. That means we are governed by the terms of our laws, not by the unenacted will of our lawmakers. 'If Congress enacted into law something different from what it intended, then it should amend the statute to conform to its intent.' In the meantime, this Court 'has no roving license ... to disregard clear language simply on the view that ... Congress 'must have intended' something broader.