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12 canonical passages across 7 cases, quoted by 341 opinions in total. These passages cluster together because the same opinions keep quoting them side by side: they state parts of one doctrine. The anchor passage is from Texas v. Johnson.
| # | Case | Flag | Canonical passage | Citers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texas v. Johnson Anchor | green | “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.” | 106 |
| 2 | Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement | green | “listeners' reaction to speech is not a content-neutral basis for regulation.” | 40 |
| 3 | Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire | green | “those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.” | 32 |
| 4 | Brandenburg v. Ohio | green | “the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a state to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce su…” | 32 |
| 5 | Wisconsin v. Mitchell | green | “the first amendment ... does not prohibit the evidentiary use of speech to establish the elements of a crime or to prove motive or intent.” | 25 |
| 6 | Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire | green | “are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.” | 22 |
| 7 | Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire | green | “there are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem.” | 22 |
| 8 | Brandenburg v. Ohio | green | “is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” | 20 |
| 9 | Brandenburg v. Ohio | green | “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action” | 18 |
| 10 | Cohen v. California | green | “personally abusive epithets which, when addressed to the ordinary citizen, are, as a matter of common knowledge, inherently likely to provoke violent reaction.” | 12 |
| 11 | Gooding v. Wilson | green | “opprobrious words or abusive language, tending to cause a breach of the peace.” | 7 |
| 12 | Gooding v. Wilson | green | “a direct tendency to cause acts of violence by the person to whom, individually, the remark is addressed.” | 5 |
A red or yellow flag on a member means the underlying case has negative treatment: for those, check the case page before relying on the passage.