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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

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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
First
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Absolutes
Deprives
Always
Written
Absolute
Censor
Term
Pass
Propriety
Society
Morality
Protective
Values
Function
Amendment
Power
Terms
Amendments
States
Value
Quick
Firsts
Expression
Justify

More quotes by 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.
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Our upside down welfare state is socialism for the rich, free enterprise for the poor.
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The right to revolt has sources deep in our history.
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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.
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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.
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What a man thinks is no concern of the government.
William O. Douglas
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Religious experiences which are as real as life to some may be incomprehensible to others.
William O. Douglas
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The dominant purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the widespread practice of government suppression of embarrassing information.
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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.
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The Court's great power is its ability to educate, to provide moral leadership.
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Violence has no constitutional sanction and every government from the beginning has moved against it. But where grievances pile high and most of the elected spokesmen represent the Establishment, violence may be the only effective response.
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Racial discrimination against a white is as unconstitutional as race discrimination against a black.
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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
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When a man knows how to live amid danger, he is not afraid to die. When he is not afraid to die, he is, strangely, free to live.
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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A road is a dagger placed in the heart of a wilderness.
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.
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When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional right to free speech, it acts lawlessly and the citizen can take matters into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all.
William O. Douglas
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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.
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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