Quotations by:
    Stewart, Potter


Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime. Long ago, those who wrote our First Amendment charted a different course. They believed a society can be truly strong only when it is truly free. In the realm of expression, they put their faith, for better or for worse, in the enlightened choice of the people, free from the interference of a policeman’s intrusive thumb or a judge’s heavy hand. So it is that the Constitution protects coarse expression as well as refined, and vulgarity no less than elegance. A book worthless to me may convey something of value to my neighbor. In the free society to which our Constitution has committed us, it is for each to choose for himself.

Potter Stewart (1915-1985) US Supreme Court Justice (1959-81)
Ginzburg v. United States, 383 U.S. 463, 498 (1966) [dissenting]
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Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 26-Jul-23
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I have reached the conclusion, which I think is confirmed at least by negative implication in the Court’s decisions since Roth and Alberts, that under the First and Fourteenth Amendments criminal laws in this area are constitutionally limited to hard-core pornography. I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.

Potter Stewart (1915-1985) US Supreme Court Justice (1959-81)
Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (1964) [Concurring]
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Source of the paraphrase, "I can't define obscenity/pornography, but I know it when I see it."

 
Added on 2-Mar-09 | Last updated 14-Aug-13
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May the state fence in the harmless mentally ill solely to save its citizens from exposure to those whose ways are different? One might as well ask if the state, to avoid public unease, could incarcerate all who are physically unattractive or socially eccentric. Mere public intolerance or animosity cannot constitutionally justify the deprivation of a person’s physical liberty.

Potter Stewart (1915-1985) US Supreme Court Justice (1959-81)
O’Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563 (1975) [Unanimous opinion]
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Added on 29-Apr-08 | Last updated 14-Aug-13
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Several decisions of this Court make clear that freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. […] As recently as last Term, in Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438, 405 U. S. 453, we recognized “the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.” That right necessarily includes the right of a woman to decide whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.

Potter Stewart (1915-1985) US Supreme Court Justice (1959-81)
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 169-170 (1973) [Concurring]
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Added on 23-Aug-13 | Last updated 23-Aug-13
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The Fourth Amendment, and the personal rights which it secures, have a long history. At the very core stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.

Potter Stewart (1915-1985) US Supreme Court Justice (1959-81)
Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505 (1961) [Unanimous opinion]
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Note that the quote is frequently misidentified as being from Katz v. United States or Bartkus v. Illinois.
 
Added on 11-Oct-07 | Last updated 14-Aug-13
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More quotes by Stewart, Potter