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We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights-older than our political parties, older than our school system.

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
Deal
Deals
System
Rights
Parties
Party
Privacy
Political
Bill
School
Bills
Right
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More quotes by William O. Douglas

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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
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A road is a dagger placed in the heart of a wilderness.
William O. Douglas
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Common sense often makes a good law.
William O. Douglas
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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
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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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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 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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Trees have judicial standing, and probably grass too.
William O. Douglas
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Our upside down welfare state is socialism for the rich, free enterprise for the poor.
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
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We do not sit as a super-legislature to weigh the wisdom of legislation.
William O. Douglas
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What a man thinks is no concern of the government.
William O. Douglas
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Tell the FBI that the kidnappers should pick out a judge that Nixon wants back.
William O. Douglas
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Acceptance by government of a dissident press is a measure of the maturity of a nation.
William O. Douglas
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We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times where there are no secrets from government.
William O. Douglas
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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
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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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Effective self-government cannot succeed unless the people are immersed in a steady, robust, unimpeded, and uncensored flow of opinion and reporting which are continuously subjected to critique, rebuttal, and reexamination.
William O. Douglas
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The concept of the public welfare is broad and inclusive ... the values it represents are spiritual as well as physical, aesthetic as well as monetary. It is within the power of the legislature to determine that the community should be beautiful as well as healthy, spacious as well as clean, well balanced as well as carefully patroled.
William O. Douglas
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World federation is an ideal that will not die. More and more people are coming to realize that peace must be more than an interlude if we are to survive that peace is a produce of law and order that law is essential if the force of arms is not to rule the world.
William O. Douglas