To protest against injustice is the foundation of all our American democracy.
THURGOOD MARSHALLTruth is more than a mental exercise.
More Thurgood Marshall Quotes
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Today’s Constitution is a realistic document of freedom only because of several corrective amendments. Those amendments speak to a sense of decency and fairness that I and other Blacks cherish.
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The process of democracy is one of change. Our laws are not frozen into immutable form, they are constantly in the process of revision in response to the needs of a changing society.
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Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men’s minds.
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What is the quality of your intent?
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We must dissent from the fear.
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In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.
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We can always stick together when we are losing, but tend to find means of breaking up when we’re winning.
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The First Amendment serves not only the needs of the polity but also those of the human spirit – a spirit that demands self-expression .
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None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps.
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Do what you think is right and let the law catch up.
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The United States has been called the melting pot of the world. But it seems to me that the colored man either missed getting into the pot or he got melted down.
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The Constitution was a product of its times.
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I cannot accept this invitation for I do not believe that the meaning of the Constitution was forever ‘fixed’ at the Philadelphia Convention… To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start. [Progressive]
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None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody – a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony or a few nuns – bent down and helped us pick up our boots.
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Some years ago I said in an opinion that if this country is a melting pot, then either the Afro-Americans didn’t get in the pot or he didn’t get melted down.
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If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his house, what books he may read or what films he may watch.
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The measure of a country’s greatness is its ability to retain compassion in time of crisis.
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A man can make what he wants of himself if he truly believes that he must be ready for hard work and many heartbreaks.
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History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.
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It is a historic step toward eliminating the shameful practice of racial discrimination in the selection of juries.
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The death penalty is no more effective a deterrent than life imprisonment. It is also evident that the burden of capital punishment falls upon the poor, the ignorant and the underprivileged members of society.
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Our Constitution is the envy of the world, as it should be for it is the grand design of the finest nation on earth.
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I’m the world’s original gradualist. I just think ninety-odd years is gradual enough.
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The ban directly hampers the partys ability to spread its message and hamstrings voters seeking to inform themselves about the candidates and issues.
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Sometimes history takes things into its own hands.
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Mere access to the courthouse doors does not by itself assure a proper functioning of the adversary process.
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