When Government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.

—Opinion of the Majority, Citizens United vs. FEC

While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majorityof this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.

—Justice Stevens, dissenting in Citizens United vs. FEC, he suggested it was a strange time to repudiate common sense.