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Absolute discretion is a ruthless master. It is more destructive of freedom than any of man's other inventions.

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
Master
Masters
Inventions
Freedom
Discretion
Men
Ruthless
Destructive
Invention
Absolutes
Absolute

More quotes by 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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The way to combat noxious ideas is with other ideas. The way to combat falsehoods is with truth.
William O. Douglas
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I hope to be remembered as someone who made the earth a little more beautiful.
William O. Douglas
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Christianity has sufficient inner strength to survive and flourish on its own. It does not need state subsidies, nor state privileges, nor state prestige. The more it obtains state support the greater it curtails human freedom.
William O. Douglas
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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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The Framers [of the Constitution] . . . created the federally protected right of silence and decreed that the law could not be used to pry open one's lips and make him a witness against himself.
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.
William O. Douglas
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The struggle is always between the individual and his sacred right to express himself and the power structure that seeks conformity, suppression, and obedience.
William O. Douglas
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Among the liberties of citizens that are guaranteed are ... the right to believe what one chooses, the right to differ from his neighbor, the right to pick and choose the political philosophy he likes best, the right to associate with whomever he chooses, the right to join groups he prefers.
William O. Douglas
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Racial discrimination against a white is as unconstitutional as race discrimination against a black.
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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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
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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.
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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Motion pictures are of course a different medium of expression than the public speech, the radio, the stage, the novel, or the magazine. But the First Amendment draws no distinction between the various methods of communicating ideas.
William O. Douglas
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The conscience of this nation is the Constitution.
William O. Douglas
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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
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The rules when the giants play are the same as when the pygmies enter the market.
William O. Douglas
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Man must be able to escape civilization if he is to survive. Some of his greatest needs are for refuges and retreats where he can recapture for a day or a week the primitive conditions of life.
William O. Douglas
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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