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William O. Douglas

73 quotes

“The whole, though larger than any of its parts, does not necessarily obscure their separate identities.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Writing for the court, United States v. Powers, 307 U.S. 214 (1939).
“Religious experiences which are as real as life to some may be incomprehensible to others.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1944 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Writing for the Court, United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78 (1944).
“Absolute discretion is a ruthless master. It is more destructive of freedom than any of man's other inventions.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1951 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dissenting, United States v. Wunderlich, 342 U.S. 98, 101 (1951).
“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.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Writing for the court, Day-Brite Lighting, Inc. v. Missouri, 342 U.S. 421 (1952).
“We need to be bold and adventurous in our thinking in order to survive.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dissenting, Adler v. Board of Education of City of New York, 342 U.S. 511 (1952).
“We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Writing for the court, Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306 (1952).
“The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dissenting, Public Utilities Commission of the District of Columbia v. Pollak, 343 U.S. 451, 467 (1952).
“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.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dissenting, Poulos v. New Hampshire, 345 U.S. 395 (1953).
“No matter what the legislature may say, a man has the right to make his speech, print his handbill, compose his newspaper, and deliver his sermon without asking anyone's permission. The contrary suggestion is abhorrent to our traditions.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dissenting, Poulos v. New Hampshire, 345 U.S. 395 (1953).
“The critical point is that the Constitution places the right of silence beyond the reach of government.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dissenting, Ullmann v. United States, 350 U.S. 422 (1956).
“Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience … that hissed yesterday may applaud today, even for the same performance.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1957 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dissenting, Kingsley Books, Inc. v. Brown, 354 U.S. 436, 447 (1957).
“That seems to us to be the common sense of the matter; and common sense often makes good law.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1957 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Writing for the court, Peak v. United States, 353 U.S. 43 (1957).
“Literature should not be suppressed merely because it offends the moral code of the censor.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1957 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dissenting, Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957).
“Any test that turns on what is offensive to the community's standards is too loose, too capricious, too destructive of freedom of expression to be squared with the First Amendment. Under that test, juries can censor, suppress, and punish what they don’t like, provided the matter relates to "sexual impurity" or has a tendency "to excite lustful thoughts". This is community censorship in one of its worst forms. It creates a regime where in the battle between the literati and the Philistines, the Philistines are certain to win.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1957 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dissenting, Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 512 (1957).
“The Constitution favors no racial group, no political or social group.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1960 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dissenting, Uphaus v. Wyman, 364 U.S. 388, 406 (1960).
“The conception of political equality from the Declaration of Independence, to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, to the Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Nineteenth Amendments could mean only one thing — one person, one vote.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Writing for the court, Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368, 381 (1963).
“We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights -- older than our political parties, older than our school system. Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred. It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects. Yet it is an association for as noble a purpose as any involved in our prior decisions.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Writing for the court, Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 486 (1965).
“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.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dissenting, Osborn v. United States, 385 U.S. 341 (1966).
“These examples and many others demonstrate an alarming trend whereby the privacy and dignity of our citizens is being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen -- a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of man's life at will.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dissenting, Osborn v. United States, 385 U.S. 323, 343 (1966).
“When man was first in the jungle, he took care of himself. When he entered a societal group, controls were necessarily imposed. But our society -- unlike most in the world -- presupposes that freedom and liberty are in a frame of reference that makes the individual, not government, the keeper of his tastes, beliefs, and ideas. That is the philosophy of the First Amendment; and it is the article of faith that sets us apart from most nations in the world.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dissenting, Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U.S. 49 (1973).
“For there is no constitutional right for any race to be preferred... If discrimination based on race is constitutionally permissible when those who hold the reins can come up with "compelling" reasons to justify it, then constitutional guarantees acquire an accordion-like quality.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dissenting, DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U.S. 312 (1974).
“The purpose of the University of Washington cannot be to produce black lawyers for blacks, Polish lawyers for Poles, Jewish lawyers for Jews, Irish lawyers for Irish. It should be to produce good lawyers for Americans and not to place First Amendment barriers against anyone.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dissenting, DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U.S. 342 (1974).
“The rules when the giants play are the same as when the pygmies enter the market.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dissenting, Scherk v. Alberto-Culver Co., 417 U.S. 506, 526 (1974).
“One aspect of modern life which has gone far to stifle men is the rapid growth of tremendous corporations. Enormous spiritual sacrifices are made in the transformation of shopkeepers into employees... The disappearance of free enterprise has led to a submergence of the individual in the impersonal corporation in much the same manner as he has been submerged in the state in other lands.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at annual dinner of Fordham University Alumni Association, New York City (February 9, 1939), reported in James Allen, Democracy and Finance (1940, reprinted 1969), p. 291. This was Douglas's last speech as chairm…
“The law is not a series of calculating machines where answers come tumbling out when the right levers are pushed.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Dissent: A Safeguard of Democracy," 32 Journal of the American Judicial Society 104, 105 (1948).
“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.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1951 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The One Un-American Act," Speech to the Author's Guild Council in New York, on receiving the 1951 Lauterbach Award (December 3, 1952).
“It is our attitude toward free thought and free expression that will determine our fate. There must be no limit on the range of temperate discussion, no limits on thought. No subject must be taboo. No censor must preside at our assemblies. We need all the ingenuity we possess to avert the holocaust.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1951 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The One Un-American Act," Speech to the Author's Guild Council in New York, on receiving the 1951 Lauterbach Award.
“These days I see America identified more and more with material things, less and less with spiritual standards. These days I see America acting abroad as an arrogant, selfish, greedy nation interested only in guns and dollars, not in people and their hopes and aspirations. We need a faith that dedicates us to something bigger and more important than ourselves or our possessions. Only if we have that faith will we be able to guide the destiny of nations in this the most critical period of world history.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Essay for This I Believe (1952).
“Once the government can demand of a publisher the names of the purchasers of his publication, the free press as we know it disappears. Then the spectre of a government agent will look over the shoulder of everyone who reads. ... Fear of criticism goes with every person into the bookstall. The subtle, imponderable pressures of the orthodox lay hold. Some will fear to read what is unpopular, what the powers-that-be dislike. ... fear will take the place of freedom in the libraries, book stores, and homes in the land.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In United States v. [Edward Rumely], 345 U.S. 41 (73 S.Ct. 543, 97 L.Ed. 770), decided on March 9, 1953.
“The right to revolt has sources deep in our history.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: An Almanac of Liberty (1954), p. 107.
“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.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: An Almanac of Liberty (1954), p. 238.
“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.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: We the Judges: Studies in American and Indian Constitutional Law from Marshall to Mukherjea, New York: Doubleday (1956) p. 256.
“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.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1960 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: America Challenged (1960), p. 4.
“The liberties of none are safe unless the liberties of all are protected.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Living Bill of Rights (1961), p. 64.
“The way to combat noxious ideas is with other ideas. The way to combat falsehoods is with truth.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mike Wallace interview (4 November 1958), quoted in The Great Quotations (1966) by George Seldes.
“Christianity has sufficient inner strength to survive and flourish on its own. It does not need state subsidies, nor state privileges, nor state prestige. The more it obtains state support the greater it curtails human freedom.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Bible and the Schools‎ (1966), p. 58.
“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.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks at conference sponsored by the American Histadrut Cultural Exchange Institute, Harriman, New York (February 17–19, 1967); reported in Judd L. Teller, ed., Government and the Democratic Process; A Symposium by Am…
“The first opinion the Court ever filed has a dissenting opinion. Dissent is a tradition of this Court... When someone is writing for the Court, he hopes to get eight others to agree with him, so many of the majority opinions are rather stultified.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with the New York Times (29 October 1973).
“The Court's great power is its ability to educate, to provide moral leadership.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Time magazine (12 November 1973).
“The struggle is always between the individual and his sacred right to express himself and the power structure that seeks conformity, suppression, and obedience.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Go East, Young Man: The Autobiography of William O. Douglas (1974), p. 449.
“It seemed to me that I had barely reached the Court when people were trying to get me off.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Court years, 1939-1975: The Autobiography of William O. Douglas‎ (1980), p. 3.
“The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Court years, 1939-1975: The Autobiography of William O. Douglas‎ (1980), p. 8.
“Tell the FBI that the kidnappers should pick out a judge that Nixon wants back.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Court Years, 1939-1975: The Autobiography of William O. Douglas (1980), p. 232.
“One who comes to the Court must come to adore, not to protest. That's the new gloss on the First Amendment, Potter.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement to Justice Potter Stewart on the arrest of peacefully protesting Vietnam War veterans on steps of the Supreme Court, in The Court Years, 1939-1975: The Autobiography of William O. Douglas‎ (1981), p. 234.
“As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air — however slight — lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Young Lawyers Section of the Washington State Bar Association (10 September 1976), The Douglas Letters : Selections from the Private Papers of Justice William O. Douglas (1987), edited by Melvin I. Urofsky and…
“The continuing episodes of protest and dissent in the United States have their basis in the First Amendment to the Constitution, a great safety valve that is lacking in most other nations of the world. The First Amendment creates a sanctuary around the citizen’s beliefs. His ideas, his conscience, his convictions are his own concern, not the government’s.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At the international level we have become virtually paranoid. The world is filled with dangerous people. Every troublemaker across the globe is a communist. Our obsession is in part the product of a fear generated by Joseph McCarthy. Indeed a black silence of fear possesses the nation and is causing us to jettison some of our libertarian traditions.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But the fact that communists may have provoked some of the present dissent in the United States is not, as some would have it, the end of the matter. The voices are not communist, for those in rebellion see communism as an even more vicious form of a status quo. The merits must be voted up or voted down.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The First Amendment was designed so as to permit a flowering of man and his idiosyncracies, but we have greatly diluted it. Although the Amendment says that Congress shall make ‘no law’ abridging freedom of speech and press, this has been construed to mean that Congress may make ‘some laws’ that abridge that freedom.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A person may be convicted for making a speech or for pamphleteering if a judge rules ex post facto that the speaker or publisher created a ‘clear and present danger’ that his forbidden or revolutionary thesis would be accepted by a least some of the audience.”
William O. Douglas (1898–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source