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The day should come when all of the forms of life... will stand before the court - the pileated woodpecker as well as the coyote and bear, the lemmings as well as the trout in the streams.

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
Come
Bear
Well
Forms
Woodpecker
Life
Court
Woodpeckers
Bears
Lemmings
Stand
Coyote
Animal
Coyotes
Form
Trout
Wells
Streams

More quotes by 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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Literature should not be suppressed merely because it offends the moral code of the censor.
William O. Douglas
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The right to dissent is the only thing that makes life tolerable for a judge of an appellate court... the affairs of government could not be conducted by democratic standards without it.
William O. Douglas
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One who comes to the Court must come to adore, not to protest. That's the new gloss on the First Amendment.
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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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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The challenge to our liberties comes frequently not from those who consciously seek to destroy our system of government, but from men of goodwill - good men who allow their proper concerns to blind them to the fact that what they propose to accomplish involves an impairment of liberty.
William O. Douglas
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The free state offers what a police state denies - the privacy of the home, the dignity and peace of mind of the individual.
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 Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.
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 court is really the keeper of the conscience, and the conscience is the Constitution.
William O. Douglas
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Those in power need checks and restraints lest they come to identify the common good for their own tastes and desires, and their continuation in office as essential to the preservation of the nation.
William O. Douglas
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No patent medicine was ever put to wider and more varied use than the Fourteenth Amendment.
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 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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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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The Second Amendment reveals a profound principle of American government - the principle of civilian ascendency over the military.
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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There have always been grievances and youth has always been the agitator.
William O. Douglas