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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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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
Point
Government
Right
Critical
Reach
Constitution
Places
Beyond
Silence
More quotes by William O. Douglas
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
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.
William O. Douglas
The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.
William O. Douglas
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
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
Acceptance by government of a dissident press is a measure of the maturity of a nation.
William O. Douglas
Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
William O. Douglas
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
There have always been grievances and youth has always been the agitator.
William O. Douglas
The right to work, I had assumed, was the most precious liberty that man possesses. Man has indeed as much right to work as he has to live, to be free, to own property.
William O. Douglas
The interests of the corporation state are to convert all the riches of the earth into dollars.
William O. Douglas
To be whole and harmonious, man must also know the music of the beaches and the woods. He must find the thing of which he is only an infinitesimal part and nurture it and love it, if he is to live.
William O. Douglas
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
I do not know of any salvation for society except through eccentrics, misfits, dissenters, people who protest.
William O. Douglas
Racial discrimination against a white is as unconstitutional as race discrimination against a black.
William O. Douglas
Fear of ideas makes us impotent and ineffective.
William O. Douglas
Thus if the First Amendment means anything in this field, it must allow protests even against the moral code that the standard of the day sets for the community. In other words, literature should not be suppressed merely because it offends the moral code of the censor.
William O. Douglas
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
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
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
