Capital punishment...treats members of the human race...as objects to be toyed with and discarded.

The genius of the Constitution rests not in any static meaning it might have had in a world that is dead and gone, but in the adaptability of its great principles to cope with current problems and current needs.

Law cannot stand aside from the social changes around it.

Debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust and wide-open and that...may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.

We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so, we dilute the freedom this cherished emblem represents.

The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to 'create' rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting.

We current justices read the Constitution in the only way that we can: as 20th-century Americans.