An unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment.
It is my belief that there are ‘absolutes’ in our Bill of Rights, and that they were put there on purpose by men who knew what the words meant....
Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.
State power is no more to be used so as to handicap religions than it is to favor them.
The First Amendment provides the only kind of security system that can preserve a free government--one that leaves the way wide open for people to favor, discuss, advocate, or incite causes and doctrines however obnoxious and antagonistic such views may be to the rest of us.
The Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.
The government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the government.
The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security.
[The First Amendment] requires the state to be a neutral in its relations with groups of religious believers and nonbelievers; it does not require the state to be their adversary.