William J. Brennan Quotes About Dignity

Quotes about: Dignity

• If we are to be as a shining city upon a hill, it will be because of our ceaseless pursuit of the constitutional ideal of human dignity.

  William J. Brennan

  Cities, Shining, Religion

• The calculated killing of a human being by the state involves, by its very nature, an absolute denial of the executed person's humanity. The most vile murder does not, in my view, release the state from constitutional restraint on the destruction of human dignity.

  William J. Brennan

  Views, Humanity, Doe

• With respect to the death penalty, I believe that a majority of the Supreme Court will one day accept that when the state punishes with death, it denies the humanity and dignity of the victim and transgresses the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. That day will be a great day for our country, for it will be a great day for our Constitution.

  William J. Brennan

  Country, Believe, Punishment

• At bottom, the battle has been waged on moral grounds. The country has debated whether a society for which the dignity of the individual is the supreme value can, without a fundamental inconsistency, follow the practice of deliberately putting one of its members to death.

  William J. Brennan

  Country, Practice, Battle

• If our free society is to endure, those who govern must recognize human dignity and accept the enforcement of constitutional limitations on their power conceived by the Framers . . . . Such recognition will not come from a technical understanding of the organs of government, or the new forms of wealth they administer. It requires something different, something deeper-a personal confrontation with the wellsprings of our society.

  William J. Brennan

  Government, Understanding, Different

• One area of law more than any other besmirches the constitutional vision of human dignity. . . . The barbaric death penalty violates our Constitution. Even the most vile murderer does not release the state from its obligation to respect dignity, for the state does not honor the victim by< emulating his murderer. Capital punishment's fatal flaw is that it treats people as objects to be toyed with and discarded. . . . One day the Court will outlaw the death penalty. Permanently.

  William J. Brennan

  Law, Punishment, People

• The quest for freedom, dignity, and the rights of man will never end.

  William J. Brennan

  Men, Rights, Quests

• If our free society is to endure, and I know it will, those who govern must recognize that the Framers of the Constitution limited their power in order to preserve human dignity and the air of freedom which is our proudest heritage.

  William J. Brennan

  Air, Order, Heritage

  "Reason and Passion: Justice Brennan's Enduring Influence". Book by Brennan Center for Justice, 1997.

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