Justice William O. Douglas, (1898-1980), U. S. Supreme Court Justice Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [1-24] of 24 Justice William O. Douglas quotesJustice William O. Douglas QuotesJustice William O. Douglas Freedom of movement is the very essence of our free society -- once the right to travel is curtailed, all other rights suffer.~ Justice William O. Douglas Once the government can demand of a publisher the names of the purchasers of his publication, the free press as we know it disappears. Then the spectre of a government agent will look over the shoulder of everyone who reads. ... Fear of criticism goes with every person into the bookstall. The subtle, imponderable pressures of the orthodox lay hold. Some will fear to read what is unpopular, what the powers-that-be dislike. ... fear will take the place of freedom in the libraries, book stores, and homes in the land.~ Justice William O. Douglas The function of the prosecutor under the federal Constitution is not to tack as many skins of victims as possible against the wall. His function is to vindicate the rights of the people as expressed in the laws and give those accused of crime a fair trial.~ Justice William O. Douglas Those in power need checks and restraints lest they come to identify the common good for their own tastes and desires, and their continuation in office as essential to the preservation of the nation.~ Justice William O. Douglas We recognize the force of the argument that the effects of war under modern conditions may be felt in the economy for years and years, and that if the war power can be used in days of peace to treat all the wounds which war inflicts on our society, it may not only swallow up all other powers of Congress but largely obliterate the Ninth and the Tenth Amendments as well.~ Justice 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.~ Justice 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? ~ Justice William O. Douglas The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom.~ Justice 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.~ Justice William O. Douglas 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.~ Justice William O. Douglas As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.~ Justice William O. Douglas When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional rights 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. ~ Justice William O. Douglas It is better, so the Fourth Amendment teaches us, that the guilty sometimes go free than the citizens be subject to easy arrest.~ Justice 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.~ Justice William O. Douglas The privacy and dignity of our citizens [are] being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen -- a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a [person’s] life.~ Justice William O. Douglas A people who extend civil liberties only to preferred groups start down the path either to dictatorship of the right or the left.~ Justice William O. Douglas My faith is that the only soul a man must save is his own.~ Justice William O. Douglas The Fifth Amendment is an old friend and a good friend. It is one of the great landmarks in men’s struggle to be free of tyranny, to be decent and civilized.~ Justice William O. Douglas The struggle is always between the individual and his sacred right to express himself and…the power structure that seeks conformity, suppression and obedience.~ Justice William O. Douglas The dominant purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the widespread practice of government suppression of embarrassing information.~ Justice William O. Douglas The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.~ Justice William O. Douglas The function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it invites a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it passes for acceptance of an idea.~ Justice William O. Douglas These unwritten amenities have been in part responsible for giving our people the feeling of independence and self-confidence, the feeling of creativity. These amenities have dignified the right of dissent and have honored the right to be nonconformists and the right to defy submissiveness. They have encouraged lives of high spirits rather than hushed, suffocating silence.~ Justice William O. Douglas The First Amendment makes confidence in the common sense of our people and in the maturity of their judgment the great postulate of our democracy.~ Justice William O. Douglas Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print