Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.
Potter StewartMay the state fence in the harmless mentally ill solely to save its citizens from exposure to those whose ways are different? One might as well ask if the state, to avoid public unease, could incarcerate all who are physically unattractive or socially eccentric.
Potter StewartWe dedicated ourselves to a powerful idea - organic law rather than naked power. There seems to be universal acceptance of that idea in the nation.
Potter StewartIn fact, a fundamental interdependence exists between the personal right to liberty and the personal right to property.
Potter StewartThe dichotomy between personal liberties and property rights is a false one. Property does not have rights. People have rights.
Potter StewartI shall not attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description (of pornography), and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.
Potter Stewart