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William O. Douglas Quotes

William Orville Douglas was an American jurist and politician who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Nominated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Douglas was confirmed at the age of 40, one of the youngest justices appointed to the court. His term, lasting 36 years and 211 days , is the longest in the history of the Supreme Court. In 1975 Time magazine called Douglas "the most doctrinaire and committed civil libertarian ever to sit on the court".After an itinerant childhood, Douglas attended Whitman College on a scholarship. He graduated from Columbia Law School in 1925 and joined the Yale Law School faculty. After serving as the third chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Douglas was successfully nominated to the Supreme Court, succeeding Justice Louis Brandeis. He was among those seriously considered for the 1944 Democratic vice presidential nomination and was subject to an unsuccessful draft movement prior to the 1948 presidential election. Douglas served on the Court until his retirement in 1975, and was succeeded by John Paul Stevens. Douglas holds a number of records as a Supreme Court Justice, including the most opinions.

Douglas wrote the Court's majority opinion in major cases such as United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. , Terminiello v. City of Chicago , Brady v. Maryland , and Griswold v. Connecticut . He wrote notable concurring or dissenting opinions in cases such as Dennis v. United States , Terry v. Ohio , and Brandenburg v. Ohio . He was also known as a strong opponent of the Vietnam War and an ardent advocate of environmentalism. Wikipedia  

✵ 16. October 1898 – 19. January 1980
William O. Douglas photo
William O. Douglas: 52 quotes0 likes

Famous William O. Douglas Quotes

“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

Dissenting, Kingsley Books, Inc. v. Brown, 354 U.S. 436, 447 (1957)
Judicial opinions

“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

Dissenting, Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U.S. 49 (1972)
Judicial opinions

“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

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 Philip E. Urofsky, p. 162
Other speeches and writings

“Inanimate objects are sometimes parties in litigation. A ship has a legal personality, a fiction found useful for maritime purposes. The corporation sole – a creature of ecclesiastical law – is an acceptable adversary and large fortunes ride on its cases…. So it should be as respects valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches, ridges, groves of trees, swampland, or even air that feels the destructive pressures of modern technology and modern life. The river, for example, is the living symbol of all the life it sustains or nourishes – fish, aquatic insects, water ouzels, otter, fisher, deer, elk, bear, and all other animals, including man, who are dependent on it or who enjoy it for its sight, its sound, or its life. The river as plaintiff speaks for the ecological unit of life that is part of it.”

William O. Douglas

Dissenting, Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727 (1972)
Judicial opinions

“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

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 chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission before his appointment to the Supreme Court.
Other speeches and writings

“The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.”

William O. Douglas

The Court years, 1939-1975: The Autobiography of William O. Douglas‎ (1980), p. 8
Other speeches and writings

William O. Douglas Quotes about people

“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.
The dissent we witness is a reaffirmation of faith in man; it is protest against living under rules and prejudices and attitudes that produce the extremes of wealth and poverty and that make us dedicated to the destruction of people through arms, bombs, and gases, and that prepare us to think alike and be submissive objects for the regime of the computer.”

William O. Douglas

Points of Rebellion (1970), p. 32–33
Other speeches and writings

“It seemed to me that I had barely reached the Court when people were trying to get me off.”

William O. Douglas

The Court years, 1939-1975: The Autobiography of William O. Douglas‎ (1980), p. 3
Other speeches and writings

“We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.”

William O. Douglas

Writing for the court, Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306 (1952)
Judicial opinions

“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

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 American and Israeli Experts (1969), p. 16
Other speeches and writings

“We have here the problem of bigness. Its lesson should by now have been burned into our memory by Brandeis. The Curse of Bigness' shows how size can become a menace – both industrial and social. It can be an industrial menace because it creates gross inequalities against existing or putative competitors. It can be a social menace – because of its control of prices. Control of prices in the steel industry is powerful leverage on our economy. For the price of steel determines the price of hundreds of other articles. Our price level determines in large measure whether we have prosperity or depression – an economy of abundance or scarcity. Size in steel should therefore be jealously watched. In final analysis, size in steel is the measure of the power of a handful of men over our economy. That power can be utilized with lightning speed. It can be benign or it can be dangerous. The philosophy of the Sherman Act is that it should not exist. For all power tends to develop into a government in itself. Power that controls the economy should be in the hands of elected representatives of the people, not in the hands of an industrial oligarchy. Industrial power should be decentralized. It should be scattered into many hands so that the fortunes of the people will not be dependent on the whim or caprice, the political prejudices, the emotional stability of a few self-appointed men. The fact that they are not vicious men but respectable and social minded is irrelevant. That is the philosophy and the command of the Sherman Act. It is founded on a theory of hostility to the concentration in private hands of power so great that only a government of the people should have it.”

William O. Douglas

Dissenting, United States v. Columbia Steel Co., 334 U.S. 495 (1948)
Judicial opinions

“A function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purposes when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea.”

William O. Douglas

Writing for the court, Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1 (1949)
Judicial opinions

William O. Douglas: Trending quotes

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

William O. Douglas

A Living Bill of Rights (1961), p. 64
Other speeches and writings

“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

Dissenting, Poulos v. New Hampshire, 345 U.S. 395 (1953)
Judicial opinions

“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

An Almanac of Liberty (1954), p. 238
Other speeches and writings

William O. Douglas Quotes

“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

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
Other speeches and writings

“The right to revolt has sources deep in our history.”

William O. Douglas

An Almanac of Liberty (1954), p. 107
Other speeches and writings

“Religious experiences which are as real as life to some may be incomprehensible to others.”

William O. Douglas

United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78 (1944)
Judicial opinions

“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

&quot;The One Un-American Act,&quot; Speech to the Author&#x27;s Guild Council in New York, on receiving the 1951 Lauterbach Award (December 3, 1952) http://ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oif/foryoungpeople/theoneunamerican/oneunamerican.cfm <br class="br">Other speeches and writings

“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

Dissenting, Osborn v. United States, 385 U.S. 323, 343 (1966)
Judicial opinions

“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

Dissenting, Poulos v. New Hampshire, 345 U.S. 395 (1953)
Judicial opinions

“Literature should not be suppressed merely because it offends the moral code of the censor.”

William O. Douglas

Dissenting, Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957)
Judicial opinions

“The critical point is that the Constitution places the right of silence beyond the reach of government.”

William O. Douglas

Dissenting, Ullmann v. United States, 350 U.S. 422 (1956)
Judicial opinions

“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

America Challenged (1960)
Other speeches and writings

“All executive power – from the reign of ancient kings to the rule of modern dictators – has the outward appearance of efficiency.”

William O. Douglas

Concurring, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952)
Judicial opinions

“The Constitution favors no racial group, no political or social group.”

William O. Douglas

Dissenting, Uphaus v. Wyman, 364 U.S. 388, 406 (1960)
Judicial opinions

“The Court's great power is its ability to educate, to provide moral leadership.”

William O. Douglas

Interview with Time magazine (12 November 1973)
Other speeches and writings

“Absolute discretion is a ruthless master. It is more destructive of freedom than any of man's other inventions.”

William O. Douglas

Dissenting, United States v. Wunderlich, 342 U.S. 98, 101 (1951)
Judicial opinions

“Tell the FBI that the kidnappers should pick out a judge that Nixon wants back.”

William O. Douglas

The Court Years, 1939-1975: The Autobiography of William O. Douglas (1980), p. 232
Other speeches and writings

“The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom.”

William O. Douglas

Dissenting, Public utilities Commission v. Pollak, 343 U.S. 451, 467 (1952)
Judicial opinions

“The rules when the giants play are the same as when the pygmies enter the market.”

William O. Douglas

Dissenting, Scherk v. Alberto-Culver Co., 417 U.S. 506, 526 (1974)
Judicial opinions

“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

Dissenting, Osborn v. United States, 385 U.S. 341 (1966)
Judicial opinions

“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

Writing for the court, Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368, 381 (1963)
Judicial opinions

“That seems to us to be the common sense of the matter; and common sense often makes good law.”

William O. Douglas

Writing for the court, Peak v. United States, 353 U.S. 43 (1957)
Judicial opinions

“The way to combat noxious ideas is with other ideas. The way to combat falsehoods is with truth.”

William O. Douglas

Mike Wallace interview (4 November 1958), quoted in The Great Quotations (1966) by George Seldes
Other speeches and writings

“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

Dissenting, DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U.S. 342 (1974)
Judicial opinions

“The critical question of "standing" would be simplified and also put neatly in focus if we fashioned a federal rule that allowed environmental issues to be litigated before federal agencies or federal courts in the name of the inanimate object about to be despoiled, defaced, or invaded by roads and bulldozers and where injury is the subject of public outrage. Contemporary public concern for protecting nature's ecological equilibrium should lead to the conferral of standing upon environmental objects to sue for their own preservation. This suit would therefore be more properly labeled as Mineral King v. Morton.”

William O. Douglas

Dissenting, Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727 (1972)
Often referred to as Douglas' "trees have standing" case.
Judicial opinions

“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

"The One Un-American Act," Speech to the Author's Guild Council in New York, on receiving the 1951 Lauterbach Award
Other speeches and writings

“We need to be bold and adventurous in our thinking in order to survive.”

William O. Douglas

Dissenting, Adler v. Board of Education of City of New York, 342 U.S. 511 (1952)
Judicial opinions

“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

Dissenting, DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U.S. 312 (1974)
Judicial opinions

“Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order, to efficiency of operation, to scientific advancement and the like.”

William O. Douglas

Points of Rebellion (1969)
Other speeches and writings

“The law is not a series of calculating machines where answers come tumbling out when the right levers are pushed.”

William O. Douglas

"The Dissent: A Safeguard of Democracy," 32 Journal of the American Judicial Society 104, 105 (1948).
Other speeches and writings

“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

Interview with the New York Times (29 October 1973)
Other speeches and writings

“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

Essay for This I Believe (1952)
Other speeches and writings

“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.”

William O. Douglas

Points of Rebellion (1969)
Other speeches and writings

“The whole, though larger than any of its parts, does not necessarily obscure their separate identities.”

William O. Douglas

Writing for the court, United States v. Powers, 307 U.S. 214 (1939)
Judicial opinions

“He was, however, speaking to a representative of government, the police. And it is to government that one goes 'for a redress of grievances,' to use an almost forgotten phrase of the First Amendment. But it is said that the purpose was 'to cause inconvenience and annoyance.' Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? The constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns, the state and federal officials only our agents. We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we need not stay docile and quiet.”

William O. Douglas

Dissenting, Colten v. Kentucky, 407 U.S. 104 (1972)
Judicial opinions

“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

Go East, Young Man: The Autobiography of William O. Douglas (1974), p. 449
Other speeches and writings

“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

The Bible and the Schools‎ (1966), p. 58
Other speeches and writings

“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

Writing for the court, Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 486 (1965)
Judicial opinions

“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

Dissenting, Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 512 (1957)
Judicial opinions

“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

Writing for the court, Day-Brite Lighting, Inc. v. Missouri, 342 U.S. 421 (1952)
Judicial opinions

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