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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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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
Darkness
Twilight
Fall
Victims
Night
Oppression
Become
Victim
Change
Aware
Doe
Neither
Come
Air
Lest
Must
However
Slight

More quotes by 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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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
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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 would rather create a precedent than find one.
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
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The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom.
William O. Douglas
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What a man thinks is no concern of the government.
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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There is no superior person by constitutional standards. An applicant who is white is entitled to no advantage by reason of that fact, nor is he subject to any disability, no matter what his race or color. Whatever his race, an applicant has a constitutional right to have his application considered on its individual merits.
William O. Douglas
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Ideas are indeed the most dangerous weapons in the world. Our ideas of freedom are the most powerful political weapons man has ever forged.
William O. Douglas
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We do not sit as a super-legislature to weigh the wisdom of legislation.
William O. Douglas
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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
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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.
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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We need be bold and adventuresome in our thinking in order to survive.
William O. Douglas
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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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Why cannot we work at cooperative schemes and search for the common ground binding all mankind together?
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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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.
William O. Douglas