Quote

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

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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
Challenges
Annoyed
Word
Annoying
Final
Speak
Finals
Need
Challenge
Angrily
Needs
Seek
Docile
Quiet
Annoy
Stay
Softly

More quotes by William O. Douglas

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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.
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The Court's great power is its ability to educate, to provide moral leadership.
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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.
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What a man thinks is no concern of the government.
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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 into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all.
William O. Douglas
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Security can only be achieved through constant change, through discarding old ideas that have outlived their usefulness and adapting others to current facts.
William O. Douglas
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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
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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 as real as life to some may be incomprehensible to others.
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I have the same confidence in the ability of our people to reject noxious literature as I have in their capacity to sort out the true from the false in theology, economics, or any other field.
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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.
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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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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 the body cells back into rhythm. Ten to twenty miles on a trail puts one to bed with his cares unraveled.
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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
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The law is not a series of calculating machines where answers come tumbling out when the right levers are pushed.
William O. Douglas
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The interests of the corporation state are to convert all the riches of the earth into dollars.
William O. Douglas
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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 order to sanction a system of censorship I would have to say that no law does not mean what it says, that no law is qualified to mean some laws. I cannot take this step.
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 critical point is that the Constitution places the right of silence beyond the reach of government.
William O. Douglas
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The most important aspect of freedom of speech is freedom to learn. All education is a continuous dialogue - questions and answers that pursue every problem on the horizon. That is the essence of academic freedom.
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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.
William O. Douglas