Abe Fortas

“ A vote is not an object of art. It is the sacred and most important instrument of democracy and of freedom. In simple terms, the vote is meaningless-it no longer serves the purpose of the democratic society-unless it, taken in the aggregate with the votes of other citizens, results in effecting the will of those citizens provided that they are more numerous than those of differing views. That is the meaning and effect of the great constitutional decisions of this Court. ”

“ With all respect, we should refuse to accept the invitation to abandon the traditional insistence of the courts upon specific, concrete facts, and instead entertain this massive onslaught in which it will be utterly impossible to make the kind of discrete judgments which are within judicial competence. With all respect we should not permit the administration of a law of the Congress to be disrupted by this non-adjudicable mass assault. ”

“ The First Amendment is not so fragile that it requires us to immunize this kind of reckless, destructive invasion of the life, even of public officials, heedless of their interests and sensitivities. The First Amendment is not a shelter for the character assassinator, whether his action is heedless and reckless or deliberate. The First Amendment does not require that we license shotgun attacks on public officials in virtually unlimited open season. The occupation of public officeholder does not forfeit one's membership in the human race. ”

“ One may not justify burning a house, even if it is his own, on the bround, however sincere, that he does so so a protest. One may not justify breaking the windows of a government building on that basis. Protest does not exonerate lawlessness. And the prohibition against flag burning on the public thoroughfare being valid, the misdemeanor is not excused merely because it is an act of flamboyant protest. ”

“ Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every heart. Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government. ”

“ The State's undoubted right to prescribe the curriculum for its public schools does not carry with it the right to prohibit, on pain of criminal penalty, the teaching of a scientific theory or doctrine where that prohibition is based upon reasons that violate the First Amendment. It is much too late to argue that the State may impose upon the teachers in its schools any conditions that it chooses, however restrictive they may be of constitutional guarantees. ”

“ The privilege historically goes to the roots of democratic and religious principle. It prevents the debasement of the citizen which would result from compelling him to 'accuse' himself before the power of the state. The roots of the privilege are deeper than the rack and the screw used to extrot confessions. They go to the nature of a free man and to his relationship to the state.
An accused cannot be compelled to utter the words spoken by the criminal in the course of the crime. I thoroughly disagree with the Court's statement that such compulsion does not violate the Fifth Amendment. ”

“ That proposition seems to us little more than an attempt to evade the impact of the rules which concededly govern patentability of the product itself.
This is not to say that we mean to disparage the importance of contributions to the fund of scientific information short of the invention of something 'useful,' or that we are blind to the prospect that what now seems without 'use' may tomorrow command the grateful attention of the public. But a patent is not a hunting license. It is not a reward for the search, but compensation for its successful conclusion. ”