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Freedom Of Expression Is The Well-spring Of Our Civilization... The History Of Civilization Is In Considerable Measure The Displacement Of Error Which Once Held Sway As Official Truth By Beliefs Which In Turn Have Yielded To Other Truths. Therefore The Liberty Of Man To Search For Truth Ought Not To Be Fettered, No Matter What Orthodoxies He May Challenge.

-Felix Frankfurter

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Freedom Of Expression Is

Felix Frankfurter

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Freedom Of Expression Is The Well-spring Of Our Civilization... The History Of Civilization Is In Considerable Measure The Displacement Of Error Which Once Held Sway As Official Truth By Beliefs Which In Turn Have Yielded To Other Truths. Therefore The Liberty Of Man To Search For Truth Ought Not To Be Fettered, No Matter What Orthodoxies He May Challenge.

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Liberty Of Thought Soon Shrivels Without Freedom Of Expression. Nor Can Truth Be Pursued In An Atmosphere Hostile To The Endeavor Or Under Dangers Which Are Hazarded Only By Heroes.

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Freedom Of Speech And Of The Press Are Essential To The Enlightenment Of A Free People And In Restraining Those Who Wield Power.

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The Accretion Of Dangerous Power Does Not Come In A Day. It Does Come, However Slowly, From The Generative Force Of Unchecked Disregard Of The Restrictions That Fence In Even The Most Disinterested Assertion Of Authority.

There Is Torture Of Mind As Well As Body; The Will Is As Much Affected By Fear As By Force. And There Comes A Point Where This Court Should Not Be Ignorant As Judges Of What We Know As Men.

Convictions Following The Admission Into Evidence Of Confessions Which Are Involuntary, I.e., The Product Of Coercion, Either Physical Or Psychological, Cannot Stand. This Is So Not Because Such Confessions Are Unlikely To Be True But Because The Methods Used To Extract Them Offend An Underlying Principle In The Enforcement Of Our Criminal Law: That Ours Is An Accusatorial, And Not An Inquisitorial, System - A System In Which The State Must Establish Guilt By Evidence Independently And Freely Secured, And May Not, By Coercion, Prove Its Charges Against An Accused Out Of His Own Mouth.

After All, Advocates, Including Advocates For States, Are Like Managers Of Pugilistic And Election Contestants In That They Have A Propensity For Claiming Everything.

While It Is Not Always Profitable To Analogize "fact" To "fiction," La Fontaine's Fable Of The Crow, The Cheese, And The Fox Demonstrates That There Is A Substantial Difference Between Holding A Piece Of Cheese In The Beak And Putting It In The Stomach.

A Phrase Begins Life As A Literary Expression; Its Felicity Leads To Its Lazy Repetition, And Repetition Soon Establishes It As A Legal Formula, Undiscriminatingly Used To Express Different And Sometimes Contradictory Ideas.

Lincoln's Appeal To "the Better Angels Of Our Nature" Failed To Avert A Fratricidal War. But The Compassionate Wisdom Of Lincoln's First And Second Inaugurals Bequeathed To The Union, Cemented With Blood, A Moral Heritage Which, When Drawn Upon In Times Of Stress And Strife, Is Sure To Find Specific Ways And Means To Surmount Difficulties That May Appear To Be Insurmountable.

What Becomes Decisive To A Justice's Functioning On The Court In The Large Area Within Which His Individuality Moves Is His General Attitude Toward Law, The Habits Of The Mind That He Has Formed Or Is Capable Of Unforming, His Capacity For Detachment, His Temperament Or Training For Putting His Passion Behind His Judgment Instead Of In Front Of It. The Attitudes And Qualities Which I Am Groping To Characterize Are Ingredients Of What Compendiously Might Be Called Dominating Humility.

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Litigation Is The Pursuit Of Practical Ends, Not A Game Of Chess.

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Of Compelling Consideration Is The Fact That Words Acquire Scope And Function From The History Of Events Which They Summarize.

I Don’t Like A Man To Be Too Efficient. He’s Likely To Be Not Human Enough.

Gratitude Is One Of The Least Articulate Of The Emotions, Especially When It Is Deep. I Can Express With Very Limited Adequacy The Passionate Devotion To This Land That Possesses Millions Of Our People, Born, Like Myself, Under Other Skies, For The Privilege That That This County Has Bestowed In Allowing Them To Partake Of Its Fellowship.

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We Have Enjoyed So Much Freedom For So Long That We Are Perhaps In Danger Of Forgetting How Much Blood It Cost To Establish The Bill Of Rights.

It Has Not Been Unknown That Judges Persist In Error To Avoid Giving The Appearance Of Weakness And Vacillation.

Without A Free Press There Can Be No Free Society. That Is Axiomatic. However, Freedom Of The Press Is Not An End In Itself But A Means To The End Of A Free Society. The Scope And Nature Of The Constitutional Guarantee Of The Freedom Of The Press Are To Be Viewed And Applied In That Light.

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The State Insists That, By Thus Quarantining The General Reading Public Against Books Not Too Rugged For Grown Men And Women In Order To Shield Juvenile Innocence, It Is Exercising Its Power To Promote The General Welfare. Surely This Is To Burn The House To Roast The Pig...the Incidence Of This Enactment Is To Reduce The Adult Population Of Michigan To Reading Only What Is Fit For Children.

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