"Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments .... It is required in the performance of our most basic responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today, it is the principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful if any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education."
~ Earl Warren in Brown vs. The Board of Education [347 US, 483 (1954)]
"In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education."
~ Earl Warren
"To separate children from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone."
~ Earl Warren
"Legislators represent people, not trees or acres. Legislators are elected by voters, not farms or cities or economic interests."
~ Earl Warren
"If Nixon is not forced to turn over tapes of his conversations with the ring of men who were conversing on their violations of the law, then liberty will soon be dead in this nation. If Nixon gets away with that, then Nixon makes the law as he goes along - not the Congress nor the courts. The old Court you and I served so long will not be worthy of its traditions if Nixon can twist, turn and fashion the law as he sees fit."
~ Earl Warren
"Liberty, not communism, is the most contagious force in the world."
~ Earl Warren
"If it is a mistake of the head and not the heart don't worry about it, that's the way we learn."
~ Earl Warren
"You sit up there, and you see the whole gamut of human nature. Even if the case being argued involves only a little fellow and $50, it involves justice. That's what is important."
~ Earl Warren
"To summarize, we hold that, when an individual is taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom by the authorities in any significant way and is subjected to questioning, the privilege against self-incrimination is jeopardized. Procedural safeguards must be employed to protect the privilege, and unless other fully effective means are adopted to notify the person of his right of silence and to assure that the exercise of the right will be scrupulously honored, the following measures are required. He must be warned prior to any questioning that he has the right to remain silent, that anything he says can be used against him in a court of law, that he has the right to the presence of an attorney, and that, if he cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed for him prior to any questioning if he so desires."
~ Earl Warren in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 478-79 (1965)
"A republic is not an easy form of government to live under, and when the responsibility of citizenship is evaded, democracy decays and authoritarianism takes over."
~ Earl Warren
"When the rights of any individual or group are chipped away, the freedom of all erodes."
~ Earl Warren
"To get what you want, STOP doing what isn't working."
~ Earl Warren
"It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive."
~ Earl Warren
"Ben Franklin may have discovered electricity- but it is the man who invented the meter who made the money."
~ Earl Warren