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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
Constitution
Places
Beyond
Silence
Point
Government
Right
Critical
Reach
More quotes by 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
Racial discrimination against a white is as unconstitutional as race discrimination against a black.
William O. Douglas
The rules when the giants play are the same as when the pygmies enter the market.
William O. Douglas
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
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
It is our attitude toward free thought and free expression that will determine our fate. There must be no limit on the range of temperate discussion, no limits on thought. No subject must be taboo. No censor must preside at our assemblies.
William O. Douglas
The law is not a series of calculating machines where answers come tumbling out when the right levers are pushed.
William O. Douglas
The great and invigorating influences in American life have been the unorthodox: the people who challenge an existing institution or way of life, or say and do things that make people think.
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
I would rather create a precedent than find one.
William O. Douglas
Hiking a ridge, a meadow, a river bottom, is as healthy a form of exercise as one can get.
William O. Douglas
The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.
William O. Douglas
Absolute discretion is a ruthless master. It is more destructive of freedom than any of man's other inventions.
William O. Douglas
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
Common sense often makes a good law.
William O. Douglas
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
Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us?
William O. Douglas
Tell the FBI that the kidnappers should pick out a judge that Nixon wants back.
William O. Douglas
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
Why cannot we work at cooperative schemes and search for the common ground binding all mankind together?
William O. Douglas
