A function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
“Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
The challenge to our liberties comes frequently not from those who consciously seek to destroy our system of government, but from men… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
The framers of the constitution knew human nature as well as we do. They too had lived in dangerous days; they too… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
What we must remember, however, is that preservation of liberties does not depend on motives. A suppression of liberty has the same… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional right to free speech, it acts lawlessly; and the citizen… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
Among the liberties of citizens that are guaranteed are ... the right to believe what one chooses, the right to differ from… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
The right to work, I had assumed, was the most precious liberty that man possesses. Man has indeed as much right to… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
The first opinion the Court ever filed has a dissenting opinion. Dissent is a tradition of this Court... When someone is writing… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
“The framers of the constitution knew human nature as well as we do. They too had lived in dangerous days; they too… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
It is better, so the Fourth Amendment teaches us, that the guilty sometimes go free than the citizens be subject to easy… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom. — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
Realization of this need means adults must awaken to the urgency of the young people's unrest-in other words there must be created… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
“Once the government can demand of a publisher the names of the purchasers of his publications, the free press as we know… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
But our society - unlike most in the world - presupposes that freedom and liberty are in a frame of reference that… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional rights it acts lawlessly and the citizen can take matters… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
“Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
A people who extend civil liberties only to preferred groups start down the path either to dictatorship of the right or the… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
The right to dissent is the only thing that makes life tolerable for a judge of an appellate court... the affairs of… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
Ideas are indeed the most dangerous weapons in the world. Our ideas of freedom are the most powerful political weapons man has… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
“These examples and many others demonstrate an alarming trend whereby the privacy and dignity of our citizens is being whittled away by… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
The First Amendment makes confidence in the common sense of our people and in the maturity of their judgement the great postulate of our… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
Inanimate objects are sometimes parties to litigation. A ship has a legal personality, a fiction found useful for maritime purposes. The corporation sole -… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
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… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
I've often thought that if planners were botanists, zoologists, geologists, and people who know about the earth, we would have much more wisdom in… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
I have the same confidence in the ability of our people to reject noxious literature as I have in their capacity to sort out… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
The liberties of none are safe unless the liberties of all are protected. — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
A function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
At the constitutional level where we work, 90 percent of any decision is emotional. The rational part of us supplies the reasons for supporting… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
To be whole and harmonious, man must also know the music of the beaches and the woods. He must find the thing of which… — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights-older than our political parties, older than our school system. — William O. Douglas Copy Share Image
