Shouting Fire In A Crowded Theater
"Shouting fire in a crowded theater" is a popular metaphor and frequent paraphrasing of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.'s opinion in the United States Supreme Court case Schenck v. United States in 1919. The paraphrasing does not generally include the word falsely, which was originally used and highlights that speech which is dangerous and false, which can be distinguished from that which is truthful but also dangerous. The quote is used as an example of speech which is claimed to serve no conceivable useful purpose and is extremely and imminently dangerous, as they held distributing fliers in opposition to a military draft to be, so that resort to the courts or administrative procedures is not practical and expresses the permissible limitations on free speech consistent with the terms of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Read more about Shouting Fire In A Crowded Theater: The Schenck Case, Literal Examples, Criticism
Other articles related to "shouting fire in a crowded theater, fire":
... a theatre and warns the audience that there are not enough fire exits ... Hitchens parodied the Holmes judgement by opening "FIRE! Fire, fire.. ... fire ...
Famous quotes containing the words theater, crowded, fire and/or shouting:
“The Miss America contest is ... the most perfectly rendered theater in our culture, for it so perfectly captures what we yearn for: a low-class ritual, a polished restatement of vulgarity, that wants to open the door to high-class respectability by way of plain middle-class anxiety and ambition.”
—Gerald Early (b. 1952)
“Here Greek and Roman find themselves
Alive along these crowded shelves;
And Shakespeare treads again his stage,
And Chaucer paints anew his age.”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
“These violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“A judgment about life has no meaning except the truth of the one who speaks last, and the mind is at ease only at the moment when everyone is shouting at once and no one can hear a thing.”
—Georges Bataille (1897–1962)