Whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest.

We look to the history of the time of framing and to the intervening history of interpretation. But the ultimate question must be, what do the words of the text mean in our time.

If our free society is to endure, and I know it will, those who govern must recognize that the Framers of the Constitution limited their power in order to preserve human dignity and the air of freedom which is our proudest heritage.

Clerks get into the damnedest wrangles--which is the way they help me.

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

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

Our statute books gradually became laden with gross, stereotyped distinctions between the sexes and, indeed, throughout much of the 19th century the position of women in our society was, in many respects, comparable to that of blacks under the pre-Civil War slave codes.