All William O. Douglas Quotes
- Why cannot we work at cooperative schemes and search for the common ground binding all mankind together? All
- Fear of ideas makes us impotent and ineffective. Fear
- The day should come when all of the forms of life... will stand before the court - the pileated woodpecker as well as the coyote… All
- 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… Accordionlike
- Violence has no constitutional sanction; and every government from the beginning has moved against it. But where grievances pile high and most of the elected… Beginning
- The truth is that a vast restructuring of our society is needed if remedies are to become available to the average person. Without that restructuring… Available
- The one governmental agency that has no ambition. Agency
- Men may believe what they cannot prove. They may not be put to the proof of their religious doctrines or beliefs. Religious experiences which are… Belief
- The dominant purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the widespread practice of government suppression of embarrassing information. Amendment
- These unwritten amenities have been in part responsible for giving our people the feeling of independence and self-confidence, the feeling of creativity. These amenities have… Amenities
- But our society - unlike most in the world - presupposes that freedom and liberty are in a frame of reference that makes the individual,… Amendment
- I learned that the richness of life is found in adventure. . . . It develops self-reliance and independence. Life then teems with excitement. There… Adventure
- The thrill of tramping alone and unafraid through a wilderness of lakes, creeks, alpine meadows, and glaciers is not known to many. A civilization can… Alone
- The First and Fourteenth Amendments say that Congress and the States shall make "no law" which abridges freedom of speech or of the press. In… Abridges
- Where suspicion fills the air and holds scholars in line for fear of their jobs, there can be no exercise of the free intellect. Supineness… Adventurous
- No patent medicine was ever put to wider and more varied use than the Fourteenth Amendment. Amendment
- The way to combat noxious ideas is with other ideas. The way to combat falsehoods is with truth. Combat
- Acceptance by government of a dissident press is a measure of the maturity of a nation. Acceptance
- The use of violence as an instrument of persuasion is therefore inviting and seems to the discontented to be the only effective protest. Discontented
- Any test that turns on what is offensive to the communitys standards is too loose, too capricious, too destructive of freedom of expression to be… Amendment
- 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… Alike
- 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… Amendment
- Hiking a ridge, a meadow, or a river bottom, is as healthy a form of exercise as one can get. Hiking seems to put all… All
- 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… Affair
- 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,… Agree