Hugo Black quotes - page 2

The First Amendment's language leaves no room for inference that abridgments of speech and press can be made just because they are slight. That Amendment provides, in simple words, that "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." I read "no law . . . abridging" to mean no law abridging. (Hugo Black)
The Framers of the Constitution knew that free speech is the friend of change and revolution. But they also knew that it is always the deadliest enemy of tyranny. View quote
Hugo Black
Our Constitution was not written in the sands to be washed away by each wave of new judges blown in by each successive political wind. View quote
Hugo Black
The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice. I have no fear of constitutional amendments properly adopted, but I do fear the rewriting of the Constitution by judges under the guise of interpretation. View quote
Hugo Black
[I]t is true that [the provisions of the Bill of Rights] were designed to meet ancient evils. But they are the same kind of human evils that have emerged from century to century whenever excessive power is sought by the few at the expense of the many. View quote
Hugo Black
The word 'security' is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment. The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security. View quote
Hugo Black
Criticism of government finds sanctuary in several portions of the 1st Amendment. It is part of the right of free speech. It embraces freedom of the press. View quote
Hugo Black
Laws are made to protect the trusting as well as the suspicious. View quote
Hugo Black
It is the paradox of life that the way to miss pleasure is to seek it first. The very first condition of lasting happiness is that a life should be full of purpose, aiming at something outside self. View quote
Hugo Black
No right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live. Other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined. View quote
Hugo Black
The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security. (Hugo Black)
I read "no law . . . abridging" to mean no law abridging. View quote
Hugo Black
In my view, far from deserving condemnation for their courageous reporting, the New York Times, the Washington Post and other newspapers should be commended for serving the purpose that the Founding Fathers saw so clearly. View quote
Hugo Black
A union of government and religion tends to destroy government and degrade religion. View quote
Hugo Black
[A]ny broad unlimited power to hold laws unconstitutional because they offend what this Court conceives to be the ‘conscience of our people' ... was not given by the Framers, but rather has been bestowed on the Court by the Court. View quote
Hugo Black
Rarely cited by the Supreme Court today, Justice Black is generally viewed by the Court (as he was by Bickel) as too 'absolutist,' too unyielding, too unresponsive to other societal needs. But the Pentagon Papers case may, even now, best be recalled in Justice Black's opinion, the last he would write on the Court. View quote
Hugo Black