Law is vulnerable to the winds of intellectual or moral fashion, which it then validates as the commands of our most basic concept

The judge's authority derives entirely from the fact that he is applying the law and not his personal values. That is why the American public accepts the decisions of its courts, accepts even decisions that nullify the laws a majority of the electorate or their representatives voted for.

Reporters treat religion as beneath mention, as personally distasteful, or as a clear and present threat to the American way of life.

The major obstacle to a religious renewal is the intellectual classes, who are highly influential and tend to view religion as primitive superstition. They believe that science has left atheism as the only respectable intellectual stance.

The First Amendment is about how we govern ourselves - not about how we titillate ourselves sexually.

Being 'at the mercy of legislative majorities' is merely another way of describing the basic American plan: representative democracy.

As government regulations grow slowly, we become used to the harness. Habit is a powerful force, and we no longer feel as intensely as we once would have [the] constriction of our liberties that would have been utterly intolerable a mere half century ago.