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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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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
Decision
Constitutional
Part
Supporting
Reason
Rational
Work
Reasons
Thinking
Level
Emotional
Percent
Predilections
Levels
Supplies

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.
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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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Religious experiences which are as real as life to some may be incomprehensible to others.
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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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The Constitution favors no racial group - no political or social group.
William O. Douglas
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The Framers [of the Constitution] . . . created the federally protected right of silence and decreed that the law could not be used to pry open one's lips and make him a witness against himself.
William O. Douglas
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Why cannot we work at cooperative schemes and search for the common ground binding all mankind together?
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Hiking a ridge, a meadow, a river bottom, is as healthy a form of exercise as one can get.
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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.
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Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred.
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Trees have judicial standing, and probably grass too.
William O. Douglas
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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.
William O. Douglas
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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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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 conscience of this nation is the Constitution.
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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It is better, so the Fourth Amendment teaches us, that the guilty sometimes go free than the citizens be subject to easy arrest.
William O. Douglas
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Political controls in the sense that we think of bureaus or departments of government can never ope to produce collaboration between groups in the inner wheels of our industrial organization. It must come from inner compulsions and desires.
William O. Douglas
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Acceptance by government of a dissident press is a measure of the maturity of a nation.
William O. Douglas
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The one governmental agency that has no ambition.
William O. Douglas