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William J. Brennan Biography

William J. Brennan

William Joseph Brennan Jr. (April 25, 1906 – July 24, 1997) was an American judge who served as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1956 to 1990. As the seventh longest-serving justice in Supreme Court history, he was known for being a leader of the Court's liberal wing.

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William J. Brennan Quotes

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.

Court, Law, People, Punishment, Violates

Appellant constituted a legitimate class of one, and this provides a basis for Congress's decision to proceed with dispatch with respect to his materials.

Basis, Class, Congress, Constituted, Decision, Respect

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.

Intervening, Justice, Justices, Mean, Might, Read

Our statute books gradually became laden with gross, stereotyped distinctions between the sexes and, indeed, throughout much of the 19th century the position of women in our society was, in many respects, comparable to that of blacks under the pre-Civil War slave codes.

Book, Codes, Gross, Respects, Sex, War

We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so, we dilute the freedom this cherished emblem represents.

Flag Burning, Flags, Freedom, Punishing, Represents

The door of the Free Exercise Clause stands tightly closed against any government regulation of religious beliefs as such. Government may neither compel affirmation of a repugnant belief, nor penalize or discriminate against individuals or groups because they hold views abhorrent to the authorities.

Exercise, Government, Individuals, Penalize, Religious, Stands

We cannot let colorblindness become myopia which masks the reality that many "created equal" have been treated within our lifetimes as inferior both by the law and by their fellow citizens.

Citizens, Law, Lifetimes, Masks, Reality

Congress acknowledged that society's accumulated myths and fears about disability and disease are as handicapping as are the physical limitations that flow from actual impairment.

Aggravation, Disease, Flow, Myths, Physical

We must meet the challenge rather than wish it were not before us.

Bad Day, Challenge, Challenges, Meet, Wish

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

Doe, Freedom, Hold, Limited, Political, Under

The calculated killing of a human being by the state involves, by its very nature, an absolute denial of the executed person's humanity. The most vile murder does not, in my view, release the state from constitutional restraint on the destruction of human dignity.

Doe, Executed, Humanity, Release, Views

Punishing desecration of the flag dilutes the very freedom that makes this emblem so revered.

Dilutes, Emblem, Emblems, Flags, Freedom, Punishing

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.

Ashamed, Guarantees, Media, Ought, Rights

Law cannot stand aside from the social changes around it.

Changes, Law, Social, Social Change, Stand

Sex, a great and mysterious motive force in human life, has indisputably been a subject of absorbing interest to mankind through the ages.

Age, Indisputably, Mankind, Motive, Mysterious, Sex

The quest for freedom, dignity, and the rights of man will never end.

Dignity, Man, Men, Quests, Rights

Religious conflict can be the bloodiest and cruelest conflicts that turn people into fanatics.

Atheism, Bloodiest, Conflicts, People, Religious, Turn

The principle inherent in the clause that prohibits pointless infliction of excessive punishment when less severe punishment can adequately achieve the same purposes invalidates the punishment.

Clause, Pointless, Principles, Punishment, Purpose

If we are to be as a shining city upon a hill, it will be because of our ceaseless pursuit of the constitutional ideal of human dignity.

Ceaseless, Cities, Hill, Pursuit, Religion, Shining

It is difficult to understand precisely what the state hopes to achieve by promoting the creation and perpetuation of a subclass of illiterates within our boundaries, surely adding to the problems and costs of unemployment, welfare and crime.

Adding, Cost, Problem, State, Unemployment

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