The First Amendment makes confidence in the common sense of our people and in the maturity of their judgement the great postulate of our democracy.

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights we designed to get the government off the backs of the people -- all the people. Those great documents guarantee to us all the rights to personal and spiritual self-fulfillment. But that guarantee is not self-executing. As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such a twilight that we all must be most aware of the change in the air -- however slight -- lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.

We do not sit as a super-legislature to weigh the wisdom of legislation.

Man must be able to escape civilization if he is to survive. Some of his greatest needs are for refuges and retreats where he can recapture for a day or a week the primitive conditions of life.

One who comes to the Court must come to adore, not to protest. That's the new gloss on the First Amendment.

If discrimination based on race is constitutionally permissible when those who hold the reins can come up with "compelling" reasons to justify it, then constitutional guarantees acquire an accordion-like quality.

Literature should not be suppressed merely because it offends the moral code of the censor.