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A people who extend civil liberties only to preferred groups start down the path either to dictatorship of the right or the left.

William O. Douglas

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William O. Douglas
Age: 81 †
Born: 1898
Born: October 16
Died: 1980
Died: January 19
Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Judge
Lawyer
Trade Unionist
University Teacher
William Orville Douglas
William Douglas
Either
Path
Preferred
Start
Extend
Left
Liberties
Right
Dictatorship
People
Civil
Groups
Liberty

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Tell the FBI that the kidnappers should pick out a judge that Nixon wants back.
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I learned that the richness of life is found in adventure. . . . It develops self-reliance and independence. Life then teems with excitement. There is stagnation only in security.
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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 spokesmen represent the Establishment, violence may be the only effective response.
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At the constitutional level where we work, 90 percent of any decision is emotional. The rational part of us supplies the reasons for supporting our predilections.
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The way to combat noxious ideas is with other ideas. The way to combat falsehoods is with truth.
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Effective self-government cannot succeed unless the people are immersed in a steady, robust, unimpeded, and uncensored flow of opinion and reporting which are continuously subjected to critique, rebuttal, and reexamination.
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The Second Amendment reveals a profound principle of American government - the principle of civilian ascendency over the military.
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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.
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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.
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The right to revolt has sources deep in our history.
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I hope to be remembered as someone who made the earth a little more beautiful.
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Among the liberties of citizens that are guaranteed are ... the right to believe what one chooses, the right to differ from his neighbor, the right to pick and choose the political philosophy he likes best, the right to associate with whomever he chooses, the right to join groups he prefers.
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The Arctic has a call that is compelling. The distant mountains [of the Brooks Range in Alaska] make one want to go on and on over the next ridge and over the one beyond. The call is that of a wilderness known only to a few...This last American wilderness must remain sacrosanct.
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The use of violence as an instrument of persuasion is therefore inviting and seems to the discontented to be the only effective protest.
William O. Douglas
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I think that the influence towards suppression of minority views - towards orthodoxy in thinking about public issues - has been more subconscious than unconscious, stemming to a very great extent from the tendency of Americans to conform...not to deviate or depart from an orthodox point of view.
William O. Douglas
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When a man knows how to live amid danger, he is not afraid to die. When he is not afraid to die, he is, strangely, free to live.
William O. Douglas
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The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom.
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Man is whole when he is in tune with the winds, the stars, and the hills... Being in tune with the universe is the entire secrets.
William O. Douglas
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The court is really the keeper of the conscience, and the conscience is the Constitution.
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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