William O. Douglas

The First Amendment makes confidence in the common sense of our people and in the maturity of their judgement the great postulate…

— William O. Douglas

Common sense often makes good law.

— William O. Douglas

Inanimate objects are sometimes parties to litigation. A ship has a legal personality, a fiction found useful for maritime purposes. The corporation…

— William O. Douglas

Any test that turns on what is offensive to the community's standards is too loose, too capricious, too destructive of freedom of…

— William O. Douglas

I've often thought that if planners were botanists, zoologists, geologists, and people who know about the earth, we would have much more…

— William O. Douglas

I have the same confidence in the ability of our people to reject noxious literature as I have in their capacity to…

— William O. Douglas

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

— William O. Douglas

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

At the constitutional level where we work, 90 percent of any decision is emotional. The rational part of us supplies the reasons…

— William O. Douglas

To be whole and harmonious, man must also know the music of the beaches and the woods. He must find the thing…

— William O. Douglas

Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

— William O. Douglas

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

It is our attitude toward free thought and free expression that will determine our fate. There must be no limit on the…

— William O. Douglas

The interests of the corporation state are to convert all the riches of the earth into dollars.

— William O. Douglas

There have always been grievances and youth has always been the agitator.

— William O. Douglas

Those in power are blind devotees to private enterprise. They accept that degree of socialism implicit in the vast subsidies to the…

— William O. Douglas

The great and invigorating influences in American life have been the unorthodox: the people who challenge an existing institution or way of…

— William O. Douglas

One who comes to the Court must come to adore, not to protest. That's the new gloss on the 1st Amendment.

— William O. Douglas

I would rather create a precedent than find one.

— William O. Douglas

“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

Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience (in this case, the judge or the…

— William O. Douglas

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

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

The river, for example, is the living symbol of all the life it sustains or nourishes - fish, aquatic insects, water ouzels,…

— William O. Douglas

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