Best First Amendment Quotes On Success In Life

These first amendment quotes will inspire you. The First Amendment guarantees freedoms concerning religion, expression, assembly, and the right to petition.

A collection of motivating, happy, and encouraging first amendment quotes, first amendment sayings, and first amendment proverbs.

Famous First Amendment Quotes

  1. “Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” ~ Harry S. Truman
  2. “Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.” ~ Benjamin Franklin
  3. “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
  4. “The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

  5. “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.” ~ John Milton
  6. “Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.” ~ William O. Douglas
  7. “An unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment.” ~ Hugo Black
  8. “As to the media, they are protected by the First Amendment, as they should be.” ~ L. Neil Smith

  9. “The first amendment protects free speech, but if you don’t have freedom of thought, do you really have freedom of speech?” ~ Rob Kampia
  10. “If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.” ~ William J. Brennan
  11. “If we don’t believe in free expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.” ~ Noam Chomsky
  12. “In Cyberspace, the First Amendment is a local ordinance.” ~ John Perry Barlow

  13. “The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is besides the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.” ~ Anthony Kennedy
  14. “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” ~ Benjamin Franklin
  15. “First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought.” ~ Anthony Kennedy
  16. “The First Amendment is not without limits.” ~ Jerry Falwell

  17. “The very reason for the First Amendment is to make the people of this country free to think, speak, write and worship as they wish, not as the Government commands.” ~ Hugo Black
  18. “Just as the strength of the Internet is chaos, so the strength of our liberty depends upon the chaos and cacophony of the unfettered speech the First Amendment protects.” ~ Stewart Dalzell
  19. “The First Amendment has the same role in my life as a citizen and a writer as the sun has in our ecosystem.” ~ Michael Chabon
  20. “The First Amendment rejects red tape, cover-up and double-speak.” ~ Roy Barnes

  21. “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.” ~ Thurgood Marshall
  22. “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” ~ John Adams
  23. “I think it is appropriate that we pay tribute to this great constitutional principle which is enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution: the principle of religious independence, of religious liberty, of religious freedom.” ~ John F. Kennedy
  24. “The First Amendment, I think, is the jewel of our Constitution.” ~ Samuel Alito

  25. “The right really dominates radio, and it’s amazing how much energy the right spends telling us that the press is slanted to the left when it really isn’t. They want to shut other people up. They really don’t understand the First Amendment.” ~ Roger Ebert
  26. “Without either the first or second amendment, we would have no liberty; the first allows us to find out what’s happening, the second allows us to do something about it! The second will be taken away first, followed by the first and then the rest of our freedoms.” ~ Unknown
  27. “The dominant purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the widespread practice of government suppression of embarrassing information.” ~ William O. Douglas
  28. “(W)e do not count heads before enforcing the First Amendment.” ~ Sandra Day O’Connor

  29. “The First Amendment doesn’t give anybody the right to be heard. People don’t have to listen to you.” ~ Rush Limbaugh
  30. “But I know newspapers. They have the first amendment and they can tell any lie knowing it’s a lie and they’re protected if the person’s famous or it’s a company.” ~ Steve Wozniak
  31. “Laws protecting the United States flag do not cut away at the freedom of speech guaranteed in the First Amendment… Congress made this position clear upon passage of the Flag Protection Act of 1989, which prohibited desecration of the flag.” ~ Larry Craig
  32. “Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficent.” ~ Louis D. Brandeis

  33. “There’s nothing in the First Amendment that even remotely talks about spending money for political contests, and to say that an individual can spend as much of his or her own money as he or she wants constitutionally without any limitation, I think is just absurd.” ~ Arlen Specter
  34. “We all have the right of freedom of speech under the First Amendment. We all don’t have to agree with one another on our opinions. Everyone in my circle, that I run around with, we all feel the same about God, country, integrity and character.” ~ Luke Scott
  35. “The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.” ~ Hugo Black
  36. “I can only assume that your editorial writer tripped over the First Amendment and thought it was the office cat.” ~ E. B. White

  37. “It just seems to be a human trait to want to protect the speech of people with whom we agree. For the First Amendment, that is not good enough. So it is really important that we protect First Amendment rights of people no matter what side of the line they are on.” ~ Floyd Abrams , First Amendment quotes rights
  38. “The Defense Department’s plan to ban newspaper reporters from pool coverage of military operations is incredible. It reveals the administration to be out of touch with journalism, reality and the First Amendment.” ~ Arthur Ochs Sulzberger
  39. “The question about those aromatic advertisements that perfume companies are having stitched into magazines these days is this: under the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment, is smelling up the place a constitutionally protected form of expression?” ~ Calvin Trillin
  40. “The courts are using the First Amendment to attack religion when they should be using it to protect religion.” ~ Ernest Istook

  41. “The “establishment of religion” clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.” ~ Hugo Black
  42. “The Washington Times wrote a story questioning the authenticity of some of the suggestions made about me in Silent Coup. But as a believer in the First Amendment, I believe they have more than a right to air their views.” ~ Bob Woodward
  43. “Any test that turns on what is offensive to the community’s standards is too loose, too capricious, too destructive of freedom of expression to be squared with the First Amendment. Under that test, juries can censor, suppress, and punish what they don’t like, provided the matter relates to “sexual impurity” or has a tendency “to excite lustful thoughts.” This is community censorship in one of its worst forms. It creates a regime where, in the battle between the literati and the Philistines, the Philistines are certain to win.” ~ William O. Douglas , First Amendment quotes freedom
  44. “The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.” ~ Louis D. Brandeis

  45. “If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.” ~ Louis D. Brandeis
  46. “I do not believe that it can be too often repeated that the freedoms of speech, press, petition and assembly guaranteed by the First Amendment must be accorded to the ideas we hate or sooner or later they will be denied to the ideas we cherish. The first banning of an association because it advocates hated ideas – whether that association be called a political party or not – marks a fateful moment in the history of a free country.” ~ Hugo Black
  47. “Americans have the right and advantage of being armed – unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.” ~ James Madison
  48. “The First Amendment…begins with the five loveliest words in the English language: ‘Congress shall make no law’.” ~ George Will

  49. “If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.” ~ John Stuart Mill
  50. “The First Amendment reads more like a dream than a law, and no other nation, so far as I know, has been crazy enough to include such a dream among its fundamental legal documents. I defend it because it has been so successful for two centuries in preserving our freedom and increasing our vitality, knowing that all arguments in support of it are certain to sound absurd.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut
  51. “Donald Trump creates scapegoats in Muslims and Mexican immigrants. He calls for the use of torture. He calls for killing the innocent children and family members of terrorists. He cheers assaults on protesters. He applauds the prospect of twisting the Constitution to limit First Amendment freedom of the press. This is the very brand of anger that has led other nations into the abyss.” ~ Mitt Romney
  52. “The First Amendment serves not only the needs of the polity but also those of the human spirit – a spirit that demands self-expression .” ~ Thurgood Marshall

  53. “The First Amendment was specifically designed for citizens to insult politicians. Libel laws were written to protect law students speaking out on political issues from getting called whores by Oxycontin addicts.” ~ Bill Maher
  54. “We have a First Amendment for good reasons. We need a free press because without an educated electorate we cannot have a functioning democracy.” ~ Jill Stein
  55. “Nothing’s riding on this, except the First Amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country. Not that any of that matters, but if you guys f-k up again, I’m gonna get mad.” ~ Ben Bradlee
  56. “It is called the First Amendment. …Simple words marching in serried ranks. Compact, concise. To the point. Clear and pure. It’s freedom’s music.” ~ Jack Valenti

  57. “At the heart of the First Amendment is the recognition of the fundamental importance of the free flow of ideas and opinions on matters of public interest and concern. The freedom to speak one’s mind is not only an aspect of individual liberty – and thus a good unto itself – but also is essential to the common quest for truth and the vitality of society as a whole. We have therefore been particularly vigilant to ensure that individual expressions of ideas remain free from governmentally imposed sanctions.” ~ William Rehnquist
  58. “It is the fundamental right of every American, as guaranteed by the first amendment of the Constitution, to worship as he or she pleases… This legislation sets forth the policy of the United States to protect and preserve the inherent right of American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut, and Native Hawaiian people to believe, express, and exercise their traditional religions” ~ Jimmy Carter
  59. “Those who won our independence… valued liberty as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.” ~ Louis D. Brandeis

  60. “The First Amendment was designed to allow for disruption of business as usual. It is not a quiet and subdued amendment or right.” ~ Naomi Wolf
  61. “Wikileaks has – we specialize in bringing the First Amendment to the world, and we were always very surprised one of our biggest battles would be trying to bring it to the United States under an Obama administration.” ~ Julian Assange
  62. “Thus if the First Amendment means anything in this field, it must allow protests even against the moral code that the standard of the day sets for the community. In other words, literature should not be suppressed merely because it offends the moral code of the censor.” ~ William O. Douglas
  63. “Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.” ~ Potter Stewart

  64. “I am committed to the First Amendment principles of religious freedom, tolerance, and diversity. Whether Mormon, Methodist, Jewish, or Muslim, Americans should be able to participate in their constitutional free exercise of religion. I do not think witchcraft is a religion, and I do not think it is in any way appropriate for the U.S. military to promote it.” ~ George W. Bush
  65. “Motion pictures are of course a different medium of expression than the public speech, the radio, the stage, the novel, or the magazine. But the First Amendment draws no distinction between the various methods of communicating ideas.” ~ William O. Douglas

First Amendment, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

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