Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
May
Proof
Real
Experiences
Believe
Prove
Men
Belief
Life
Law
Incomprehensible
Religious
Doctrines
Others
Beliefs
Cannot
Doctrine

More quotes by William O. Douglas

Image
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
Image
The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.
William O. Douglas
Image
Racial discrimination against a white is as unconstitutional as race discrimination against a black.
William O. Douglas
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Hiking a ridge, a meadow, or a river bottom, is as healthy a form of exercise as one can get. Hiking seems to put all the body cells back into rhythm. Ten to twenty miles on a trail puts one to bed with his cares unraveled.
William O. Douglas
Image
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
Image
Absolute discretion is a ruthless master. It is more destructive of freedom than any of man's other inventions.
William O. Douglas
Image
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
Image
No patent medicine was ever put to wider and more varied use than the Fourteenth Amendment.
William O. Douglas
Image
The court is really the keeper of the conscience, and the conscience is the Constitution.
William O. Douglas
Image
The Second Amendment reveals a profound principle of American government - the principle of civilian ascendency over the military.
William O. Douglas
Image
The censor is always quick to justify his function in terms that are protective of society. But the First Amendment, written in terms that are absolute, deprives the States of any power to pass on the value, the propriety, or the morality of a particular expression.
William O. Douglas
Image
Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.
William O. Douglas
Image
The First and Fourteenth Amendments say that Congress and the States shall make no law which abridges freedom of speech or of the press. In order to sanction a system of censorship I would have to say that no law does not mean what it says, that no law is qualified to mean some laws. I cannot take this step.
William O. Douglas
Image
Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred.
William O. Douglas
Image
Man is whole when he is in tune with the winds, the stars, and the hills... Being in tune with the universe is the entire secrets.
William O. Douglas
Image
The way to combat noxious ideas is with other ideas. The way to combat falsehoods is with truth.
William O. Douglas
Image
I would rather create a precedent than find one.
William O. Douglas
Image
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