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• Sex, a great and mysterious motive force in human life, has indisputably been a subject of absorbing interest to mankind through the ages.
  • Writing for the majority in Roth v. United States (1957)

• The Constitution was framed fundamentally as a bulwark against governmental power, and preventing the arbitrary administration of punishment is a basic ideal of any society that purports to be governed by the rule of law.
  • McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987) (dissenting)

• Yet the ultimate problem is more fundamental. I have long believed that the death penalty is in all circumstances a barbaric and inhuman punishment that violates our Constitution. Even the most vile murderer does not release the state from its constitutional obligation to respect human dignity, for the state does not honor the victim by emulating the murderer who took his life. The fatal infirmity of capital punishment is that it treats members of the human race as non-humans, as objects to be toyed with and discarded.
  • Reason and Passion: Justice Brennan's Enduring Influence

• The machinery chugs on unabated, belching out its dehumanizing product. it is distressing. But I refuse to despair. I know, one day, the Supreme Court will outlaw the death penalty. Permanently.
  • Reason and Passion: Justice Brennan's Enduring Influence

• 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.
  • Reason and Passion: Justice Brennan's Enduring Influence

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• The genius of the Constitution rests not in any static meaning it might have had in a world that is dead and gone, but in the adaptability of its great principles to cope with current problems and current needs.