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William O. Douglas Quotes

1898–1980 United States

William Orville Douglas (16 October 1898 – 19 January 1980) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. With a term lasting 36 years and 209 days, he is the longest-serving justice in the history of the Supreme Court.

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Also known as: Douglas, William, Douglas, William O., William Orville Douglas

Random William O. Douglas quote

64 quotes

The Court's great power is its ability to educate, to provide moral leadership.

The liberties of none are safe unless the liberties of all are protected.

A Living Bill of Rights (1961)

We need to be bold and adventurous in our thinking in order to survive.

The struggle is always between the individual and his sacred right to express himself and the power structure that seeks conformity, suppression, and obedience.

Religious experiences which are as real as life to some may be incomprehensible to others.

The Constitution favors no racial group, no political or social group.

The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom.

Literature should not be suppressed merely because it offends the moral code of the censor.

The law is not a series of calculating machines where answers come tumbling out when the right levers are pushed.

The way to combat noxious ideas is with other ideas. The way to combat falsehoods is with truth.

We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; where there are no secrets from government.

That seems to us to be the common sense of the matter; and common sense often makes good law.

A man's belief is his own; he is the keeper of his conscience; Big Brother has no rightful concern in these areas.

Points of Rebellion (1970)

Those in power need checks and restraints lest they come to identify the common good for their own tastes and desires, and their continuation in office as essential to the preservation of the nation.

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.

The whole, though larger than any of its parts, does not necessarily obscure their separate identities.

The rules when the giants play are the same as when the pygmies enter the market.

Tell the FBI that the kidnappers should pick out a judge that Nixon wants back.

Where grievances pile high and most of the elected spokesmen represent the Establishment, violence may be the only effective response.

The use of violence as an instrument of persuasion is therefore inviting and seems to the discontented to be the only effective protest.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: William O. Douglas (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.