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The framers of the constitution knew human nature as well as we do. They too had lived in dangerous days they too knew the suffocating influence of orthodoxy and standardized thought. They weighed the compulsions for restrained speech and thought against the abuses of liberty. They chose liberty.

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
Well
Knew
Chose
Standardized
Days
Abuse
Suffocating
Society
Constitution
Framers
Nature
Lived
Restrained
Thought
Speech
Weighed
Wells
Influence
Abuses
Human
Dangerous
Orthodoxy
Humans
Liberty
Compulsion
Compulsions

More quotes by William O. Douglas

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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
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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.
William O. Douglas
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I do not know of any salvation for society except through eccentrics, misfits, dissenters, people who protest.
William O. Douglas
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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.
William O. Douglas
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A reporter is no better than his source of information.
William O. Douglas
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Freedom of movement is the very essence of our free society -- once the right to travel is curtailed, all other rights suffer.
William O. Douglas
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The way to combat noxious ideas is with other ideas. The way to combat falsehoods is with truth.
William O. Douglas
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Power that controls the economy should be in the hands of elected representatives of the people, not in the hands of an industrial oligarchy.
William O. Douglas
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I've often thought that if planners were botanists, zoologists, 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
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The association 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 any prior decisions.
William O. Douglas
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The Free Exercise Clause protects the individual from any coercive measure that encourages him toward one faith or creed, discourages him from another, or makes it prudent or desirable for him to select one and embrace it.
William O. Douglas
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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
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It seemed to me that I had barely reached the Court when people were trying to get me off.
William O. Douglas
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As night-fall does not come at once, neither does oppression...It is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become victims of the darkness.
William O. Douglas
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Motion pictures are of course a different medium of expression than the public speech, the radio, the stage, the novel, or the magazine. But the First Amendment draws no distinction between the various methods of communicating ideas.
William O. Douglas
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Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us?
William O. Douglas
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My faith is that the only soul a man must save is his own.
William O. Douglas
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The conscience of this nation is the Constitution.
William O. Douglas
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Literature should not be suppressed merely because it offends the moral code of the censor.
William O. Douglas
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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 a life.
William O. Douglas