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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.
United States Environmentalists Judges Lawyers Presbyterians Also known as: Douglas, William, Douglas, William O., William Orville Douglas
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64 quotes
The right to revolt has sources deep in our history.
An Almanac of Liberty (1954)
The Fifth Amendment is an old friend and a good friend, one of the great landmarks in men's struggle to be free of tyranny, to be decent and civilized.
An Almanac of Liberty (1954)
We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.
Once the government can demand of a publisher the names of the purchasers of his publication, the free press as we know it disappears.
Absolute discretion is a ruthless master. It is more destructive of freedom than any of man's other inventions.
Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us?
All executive power — from the reign of ancient kings to the rule of modern dictators — has the outward appearance of efficiency.
We must realize that today's Establishment is the New George III. Whether it will continue to adhere to his tactics, we do not know. If it does, the redress, honored in tradition, is also revolution.
Points of Rebellion (1970)
The critical point is that the Constitution places the right of silence beyond the reach of government.
But the case against the university is that it is chiefly a handmaiden of the state or of industry or, worse yet, of the military-industrial complex.
Points of Rebellion (1970)
If the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech and press is to mean anything, it must allow protests even against the moral code that the standard of the day sets for the community.
Our militarism threatens to become more and more the dominant force in our lives. This is an inflammatory issue; and dissent on it will not be stilled.
Points of Rebellion (1970)
We are witnessing, I think, a new American phenomenon. The two parties have become almost indistinguishable; and each is controlled by the Establishment.
Points of Rebellion (1970)
The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.
It seemed to me that I had barely reached the Court when people were trying to get me off.
The right to dissent is the only thing that makes life tolerable for a judge of an appellate court... the affairs of government could not be conducted by democratic standards without it.
America Challenged (1960)
Man is about to be an automaton; he is identifiable only in the computer. As a person of worth and creativity, as a being with an infinite potential, he retreats and battles the forces that make him inhuman.
Points of Rebellion (1970)
Our recent decisions make plain that we do not sit as a super-legislature to weigh the wisdom of legislation nor to decide whether the policy which it expresses offends the public welfare.
When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional right to free speech, it acts lawlessly; and the citizen can take matters in his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all.
I've often thought that if our zoning boards could be put in charge of botanists, of zoologists and geologists, and people who know about the earth, we would have much more wisdom in such planning than we have when we leave it to the engineers.
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