William O. Douglas: Trending quotes (page 3)

“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

Hope

“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

People , World , Faith , Hope

“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

Parting

“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

People

“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

People , Idea , Anger

“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

Support , Freedom

“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

Life , Marriage , School , Faith

“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

Men , Hostility , People , Problem

“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

Communication , Freedom

“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

Wisdom , Decision