Top 100 Quotes About The First Amendment
#1. Jefferson found in the religion phrases of the First Amendment no vague or fuzzy language to be bent or shaped or twisted as suited any Supreme Court Justice or White House incumbent. That amendment had built a wall, with the ecclesiastical estate on one side and the civil estate on the other.
Edwin Gaustad
#2. 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
#3. I'm not interested in censorship. I like the First Amendment very much.
Henry Rollins
#4. Privacy is not explicitly spelled out in the Constitution as freedom of speech is in the First Amendment.
Larry Flynt
#5. It's not that we're supposed to enjoy it; it's that we're supposed to allow it and then respond in a more persuasive voice. That's the bedrock of the First Amendment - the answer to speech you do not like is not less speech, it's more speech. In
Megyn Kelly
#6. The dominant purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the widespread practice of government suppression of embarrassing information.
William O. Douglas
#7. The First Amendment only says 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.' It can disrespect all it wants.
P. J. O'Rourke
#8. The courts are using the First Amendment to attack religion, when they should be using it to protect religion.
Ernest Istook
#9. When I began we did not really have a lot of First Amendment law. It is really surprising to think of it this way, but a lot of the law - most of the law that relates to the First Amendment freedom of the press in America - is really within living memory.
Floyd Abrams
#10. From a constitutional standpoint, the religion of a candidate is supposed to make no difference. Even before the founding fathers dreamed up the First Amendment, they inserted a provision in the Constitution expressly prohibiting any religious test for office.
Noah Feldman
#11. The First Amendment was not intended to withdraw the Christian religion as a whole from the protection of Congress.
Joseph Story
#12. Corporations haven't limited their grasp to the First Amendment; pretty much any and virtually every amendment that could be used to further corporate interests has been fair game.
Thom Hartmann
#13. If our constitution had followed the style of Saint Paul, the First Amendment might have concluded: "But the greatest of these is speech." In the darkness of tyranny, this is the key to the sunlight. If it is granted, all doors open. If it is withheld, none.
Robert Kennedy
#14. Whatever one's religion in his private life may be, for the officeholder, nothing takes precedence over his oath to uphold the Constitution and all its parts - including the First Amendment and the strict separation of church and state.
John F. Kennedy
#15. 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
#16. Banning guns because of their misuse is like banning the First Amendment because one might libel or slander.
Ron Paul
#17. The net effect of the distortion of the First Amendment is to require that wherever the state is, religion must be excluded.
Pat Swindall
#18. You may not be aware of a recent survey that showed that if the First Amendment were put to a popular vote today, it would fail by a 60% to 40% vote.
James E. Rogers
#19. Since the writing of our Constitution, our religious liberties have been systematically threatened and whittled away by Supreme Court justices who interpret the First Amendment as a prohibition against religious activity on public property.
Tim LaHaye
#20. When our Founding Fathers passed the First Amendment, they sought to protect churches from government interference. They never intended to construct a wall of hostility between government and the concept of religious belief itself.
Ronald Reagan
#21. If newsmen do not tell the truth as they see it because it might make waves, or if their bosses decide something should or should not be broadcast because of Washington or Main Street consequences, we have dishonored ourselves and we have lost the First Amendment by default.
Richard S. Salant
#22. To the ACLU, the First Amendment speaks more directly to freedom from religion than it does to freedom of religion.
William Anthony Donohue
#23. The First Amendment applies to rogues and scoundrels. You don't lose your First Amendment rights because of a sleazy personality, or even for having committed a crime. Felons in jail are protected by the First Amendment.
Naomi Wolf
#24. This separation was absolute in our original Republic. But the sky-godders do not give up easily. In the 1950s they actually got the phrase In God We Trust onto the currency, in direct violation of the First Amendment.
Gore Vidal
#25. The First Amendment is about how we govern ourselves - not about how we titillate ourselves sexually.
Robert Bork
#26. 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
#27. The First Amendment contradicts the First Commandment.
Aron Ra
#28. I would not look with favor upon a President working to subvert the First Amendment's guarantees of religious liberty ... Neither do I look with favor upon those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by requiring a religious test - even by indirection.
John F. Kennedy
#29. When I think of civil liberties I think of the founding principles of the country. The freedoms that are in the First Amendment. But also the fundamental right to privacy.
Tim Cook
#30. After reading hundreds of e-mails, I have made MY decision. By pulling my opening Oct 3rd, You (ESPN) stepped on the Toes of The First Amendment
Freedom of Speech, so therefore Me, My Song, and All My Rowdy Friends are OUT OF HERE. It's been a great run.
Hank Williams Jr.
#31. The First Amendment to the Constitution reflects that concept recognized in the Ten Commandments, that the duties we owe to God and the manner of discharging those duties are outside the purview of government.
Roy Moore
#32. 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
#33. For the church to say that abortion is not acceptable for a Catholic is fine. To say directly or indirectly that on something that is a church teaching that you must also vote according to that - that's not acceptable in a country based on the First Amendment.
Patrick Leahy
#34. The word 'free' is used three times in the Declaration of Independence and once in the First Amendment to the Constitution, along with 'freedom.' The word 'fair' is not used in either of our founding documents.
Milton Friedman
#35. I'm pretty sure most of them sincerely believe that the First Amendment actually means they can say anything they want without consequences. Like no, that does not protect your butt when you say something ignorant on Facebook and end up getting kicked off the football team or whatever!
Jennifer L. Armentrout
#37. The first amendment makes it clear that we are free to practice religion without government interference. The Constitution also establishes the separation of church and state so that the laws we live by our never guided by religious zeal.
Roxane Gay
#38. The First Amendment exists to protect our religious liberty
to ensure that all Americans are able to seek out worship God with all our hearts, free from government coercion; it does not mandate scouring the public square to forcibly remove all acknowledgement s of the Almighty
Ted Cruz
#39. I believe in the American tradition of separation of church and state which is expressed in the First Amendment to the Constitution. By my office - and by personal conviction - I am sworn to uphold that tradition.
Lyndon B. Johnson
#40. We don't have an Official Secrets Act in the United States, as other countries do. Under the First Amendment, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of association are more important than protecting secrets.
Alan Dershowitz
#41. The First Amendment defends all forms of speech including hate speech, which is why groups like Ku Klux Klan are allowed to utter their poisonous remarks.
Salman Rushdie
#42. 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
#43. I can only assume that your editorial writer tripped over the First Amendment and thought it was the office cat.
E.B. White
#44. The spirit of the First Amendment has been effectively repealed for conservative speech by a censorious, accusatory mob.
Ann Coulter
#45. 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
#46. The First Amendment doesn't give anybody the right to be heard. People don't have to listen to you.
Rush Limbaugh
#47. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, and software has been treated as a form of speech ever since. So if software code is speech, Apple says the First Amendment also means the government can't tell Apple what to say.
Laura Sydell
#48. For an American to be patriotic is to be loyal to the principles of our Constitution, and the First Amendment. The truth is that the policies of the government is sometimes in conflict with that. In our country, patriotism should not be defined as obedience to an authority.
Daniel Ellsberg
#49. Religious people are now finding that the First Amendment is being used to herd them into a social ghetto, separated and walled off from public participation.
Pat Swindall
#50. The First Amendment says keep government out of religion. It doesn't say keep religion out of government.
Rand Paul
#51. The First Amendment makes confidence in the common sense of our people and in the maturity of their judgement the great postulate of our democracy.
William O. Douglas
#53. For the first 200 years of our nation's history, corporations were never defined by the courts as persons with free speech rights under the First Amendment. Only in recent years have we witnessed this corporate takeover of our First Amendment, culminating in the Citizens United ruling.
John Bonifaz
#54. I have tried to help build a framework that recaptures the First Amendment as a principle to empower all Americans, politically and personally, through access to plentiful, diverse communications spaces.
Marvin Ammori
#55. They ought to put an amendment to the First Amendment that says there shall also be freedom of hearing.
Tom Smothers
#56. If you're not going to offend somebody you don't need the First Amendment.
Larry Flynt
#57. That wall, embodied in the First Amendment, is perhaps America's most important contribution to political progress on this planet.
Lowell P. Weicker Jr.
#58. There are many prices we pay for freedoms secured by the First Amendment; the risk of undue influence is one of them, confirming what we have long known: Freedom is hazardous, but some restraints are worse.
Warren E. Burger
#59. The First Amendment does not guarantee the press a constitutional right of special access to information not available to the general public, nor does it cloak the inmate with special rights of freedom of speech.
Pete Wilson
#60. The First Amendment rejects red tape, cover-up and double-speak.
Roy Barnes
#62. It is a very odd sort of Patriot that would destroy the First Amendment to protect the Second.
Jerry Holkins
#63. 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
#64. 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
#65. Tolerance is a one-way street in the Age of Obama. 'Choice' is in the eye (and iron fist) of the First Amendment usurper.
Michelle Malkin
#66. A school prayer amendment would confer upon public school boards a power the First Amendment now denies to Congress and the states, that is, the power to establish religion.
Sam Ervin
#67. We don't have the freedom of speech to talk about the weather. We have the first amendment so we can say some very controversial things.
Ron Paul
#68. The modern public school derived from a philosophy of freedom reflected in the First Amendment ... The non-sectarian or secular public school was the means of reconciling freedom in general with religious freedom.
William J. Brennan
#69. I believe that the Framers of the Constitution made their intent clear when they wrote the First Amendment. I believe they wanted to keep the new government from endorsing one religion over another, not erase the public consciousness or common faith.
Nick Rahall
#70. 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
#71. A justice is not like a law professor, who might say, 'This is my theory ... and this is what I'm going to be faithful to and consistent with,' and in twenty years will look back and say, 'I had a consistent theory of the First Amendment as applied to a particular area.'
John Roberts
#72. I would bet there is no place in the United States where the First Amendment would survive intact.
Nat Hentoff
#73. The First Amendment has created a wall of separation between the church and the State. But that wall is one directional. It is to keep the government from running the Church. But it is not to keep Christian principles out of the government.
Thomas Jefferson
#74. 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
#75. The first amendment protects free speech, but if you don't have freedom of thought, do you really have freedom of speech?
Rob Kampia
#76. In 'Citizens United v. FEC', the Supreme Court ruled that sections of the federal campaign finance law known as McCain-Feingold imposed unconstitutional restrictions on the First Amendment rights of corporations.
Eric Schneiderman
#77. Is Donald Trump a serious candidate? The reason I ask this is, if you're going to close the Internet, realize, America, what that entails. That entails getting rid of the First amendment, ok? It's no small feat.
Rand Paul
#78. The notion that the First Amendment has no limitations whatsoever is balderdash.
Trey Gowdy
#79. It appears that some school officials, teachers, and parents have assumed that religious expression of any type is either inappropriate or forbidden altogether in public schools; however, nothing in the First Amendment converts our public schools into religion-free zones.
William J. Clinton
#80. If America has a civic religion, the First Amendment is its central article of faith.
Henry Louis Gates
#81. I try to do that in this book without preaching - to try to do as you just said that you really have to defend the First Amendment rights of everybody.
Floyd Abrams
#82. 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
#83. The word 'security' is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment. The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security ...
Hugo Black
#84. Any time someone carries a picket sign in front of the White House, that is the First Amendment in action.
Julian Bond
#85. As to the media, they are protected by the First Amendment, as they should be.
L. Neil Smith
#86. And so popular culture raises issues that are very important, actually, in the country I think. You get issues of the First Amendment rights and issues of drug use, issues of AIDS, and things like that all arise naturally out of pop culture.
Kurt Loder
#87. 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. [Progressive]
Hugo Black
#88. After the church ceased to exist, an outfit calling itself the First Amendment Protection Society, Inc. - the largest operator of adult bookstores, topless bars, Internet porn sites, and karaoke cocktail lounges in the United States - intimidated
Dean Koontz
#89. 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
#90. They're Democrats always accusing us of repressing their speech. I say let's do it. Let's repress them. Frankly, I'm not a big fan of the First Amendment.
Ann Coulter
#91. I'm a crusader. I really believe in the First Amendment, and I use it fully, and I pay a price for that.
Al Goldstein
#92. The First Amendment ... begins with the five loveliest words in the English language: 'Congress shall make no law'.
George Will
#93. The Supreme Court is expected to rule this week whether banning cross burning by groups like the Klu Klux Klan violates the first amendment. The outcome could affect the entertainment at Trent Lott's Christmas party.
Tina Fey
#94. Somewhere along the line we started misinterpreting the First Amendment and this idea of the freedom of speech the amendment grants us. We are free to speak as we choose without fear of prosecution or persecution, but we are not free to speak as we choose without consequence.
Roxane Gay
#95. Evolutionism is a religious world view that is not supported by science, Scripture, popular opinion, or common sense. The exclusive teaching of this dangerous, mind-altering philosophy in tax supported schools, parks, museums, etc. is a clear violation of the First Amendment.
Kent Hovind
#96. The point is that knowledge of God is not prohibited under the First Amendment.
Roy Moore
#97. However, they ignore the fact that the First Amendment is intended to protect only against government sanctions for exercising free speech rights, not private actions.
Ed Koch
#98. The First Amendment isn't about free thought and free opinion and free belief. The First Amendment is about free exercise
the carrying into practice of religious principles, and beliefs, and convictions.
Alan Keyes
#99. The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is beside the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.
Anthony Kennedy
#100. I cannot believe that Muffy just called the First Amendment fiddle-faddle. Fiddle Faddle is a delicious candy-coated popcorn snack food. It has nothing to do with the Bill of Rights.
Meg Cabot
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