The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic…. The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.

The line comes from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s opinion for a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in Schenck v. United States (1919), decided during World War I amid aggressive federal prosecutions under the Espionage Act of 1917. Charles Schenck, a Socialist Party official, was convicted for distributing leaflets urging resistance to the draft. Holmes used the “falsely shouting fire in a theatre” illustration to argue that even core constitutional freedoms have limits when speech, in its immediate circumstances, poses a serious risk of producing harms the government may lawfully prevent. In the same opinion he articulated the “clear and present danger” test as a way to evaluate when wartime advocacy could be punished.

Holmes’s point is not that unpopular speech is unprotected, but that context can transform words into conduct-like acts with imminent harmful consequences. The theatre example dramatizes the idea that speech may be restricted when it is both false and likely to trigger immediate panic—an analogy for speech that functions as a direct catalyst for unlawful or dangerous action. The “clear and present danger” formulation attempts to balance free expression against public safety by asking whether the speech, given the circumstances, creates a sufficiently immediate and serious risk of producing “substantive evils” within Congress’s power to prevent. The passage became a foundational (and controversial) touchstone in American First Amendment doctrine, later narrowed and replaced by more speech-protective standards.

“The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. It does not even protect a man from an injunction against uttering words that may have all the effect of force. The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree.”

1) “falsely shouting fire in a crowded theatre” (common later paraphrase)
2) “The question in every case is whether the words are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger…” (often quoted without “used” repeated)
3) “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre…” (punctuation and capitalization vary across reprints)