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Louis Brandeis Quotes
1856–1941 United States
Louis Dembitz Brandeis (November 13, 1856 – October 5, 1941) was an American litigator, Supreme Court Justice, advocate of privacy, and developer of the Brandeis brief.
United States Activists Lawyers Also known as: Louis D. Brandeis
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36 quotes
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
If we would guide by the light of reason, we must let our minds be bold.
Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.
Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.
We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.
We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.
It is, as a rule, far more important how men pursue their occupation than what the occupation is which they select.
It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.
The intensity and complexity of life, attendant upon advancing civilization, have rendered necessary some retreat from the world.
The general rule of law is, that the noblest of human productions — knowledge, truths ascertained, conceptions and ideas — become, after voluntary communication to others, free as the air to common use.
Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.
Ownership has been separated from control; and this separation has removed many of the checks which formerly operated to curb the misuse of wealth and power.
Constitutional rights should not be frittered away by arguments so technical and unsubstantial.
The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
[N]o law, written or unwritten, can be understood without a full knowledge of the facts out of which it arises, and to which it is to be applied.
When a man feels that he cannot leave his work, it is a sure sign of an impending collapse.
If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for the law. It invites every man to become a law unto himself. It invites anarchy.
For good or for ill, [government] teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law.
What are the American ideals? They are the development of the individual for his own and the common good; the development of the individual through liberty, and the attainment of the common good through democracy and social justice.
True Americanism (1915)
The court bows to the lessons of experience and the force of better reasoning, recognizing that the process of trial and error, so fruitful in the physical sciences, is appropriate also in the judicial function.
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