William J. Brennan Quotes About Constitution

Quotes about: Constitution

• 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.

  William J. Brennan

  Principles, Needs, Gone

  "The Constitution of the United States: Contemporary Ratification" (speech),Washington, D.C., 12 Oct. 1985

• We hold that the Constitution does not forbid the states minor intrusions into an individual's body under stringently limited conditions.

  William J. Brennan

  Freedom, Political, Doe

• With respect to the death penalty, I believe that a majority of the Supreme Court will one day accept that when the state punishes with death, it denies the humanity and dignity of the victim and transgresses the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. That day will be a great day for our country, for it will be a great day for our Constitution.

  William J. Brennan

  Country, Believe, Punishment

• Our amended Constitution is the lodestar for our aspirations. Like every text worth reading, it is not crystalline. The phrasing is broad and the limitations of its provisions are not clearly marked. Its majestic generalities and ennobling pronouncements are both luminous and obscure. This ambiguity of course calls forth interpretation, the interaction of reader and text. The encounter with the Constitutional text has been, in many senses, my life's work.

  William J. Brennan

  Reading, Law, Encounters

• You in the media ought to be ashamed of yourselves to call the provisions and the guarantees of the Bill of Rights 'Technicalities'. They're not. We are what we are because of those guarantees.

  William J. Brennan

  Rights, Media, Bills

• The Bill of Rights never gets off the page and into the lives of most Americans.

  William J. Brennan

  Rights, Pages, Bills

• We current Justices read the Constitution in the only way that we can: as Twentieth Century Americans. 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. For 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.

  William J. Brennan

  Mean, Justice, Principles

  "The Constitution of the United States: Contemporary Ratification" (speech),Washington, D.C., 12 Oct. 1985

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

  William J. Brennan

  Justice, Way, Constitution

  "The Constitution of the United States: Contemporary Ratification" (speech),Washington, D.C., 12 Oct. 1985

• All ideas having even the slightest redeeming social importance - unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinion, have the full protection of the guarantees [of the First Amendment].

  William J. Brennan

  Ideas, Justice, Religion

  Roth v. United States (1957)

• One area of law more than any other besmirches the constitutional vision of human dignity. . . . The barbaric death penalty violates our Constitution. Even the most vile murderer does not release the state from its obligation to respect dignity, for the state does not honor the victim by< emulating his murderer. Capital punishment's fatal flaw is that it treats people as objects to be toyed with and discarded. . . . One day the Court will outlaw the death penalty. Permanently.

  William J. Brennan

  Law, Punishment, People

• More fundamentally, however, the answer to petitioners' objection is that there can be no impairment of executive power, whether on the state or federal level, where actions pursuant to that power are impermissible under the Constitution. Where there is no power, there can be no impairment of power.

  William J. Brennan

  Executive Power, Answers, Levels

  "Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 353". Writing for the court, 1976.

• If a policeman must know the Constitution, then why not a planner?

  William J. Brennan

  Why Not, Urban, Planning

  "Viewpoint: A Blow to Property Rights" by Bernard H. Siegan, reason.com. September 1984.

• The Constitution was framed fundamentally as a bulwark against governmental power, and preventing the arbitrary administration of punishment is a basic ideal of any society that purports to be governed by the rule of law.

  William J. Brennan

  Law, Punishment, Arbitrary

  "McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279". Dissenting opinion, 1987.

• 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.

  William J. Brennan

  Air, Order, Heritage

  "Reason and Passion: Justice Brennan's Enduring Influence". Book by Brennan Center for Justice, 1997.

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