Quotes from William O. Douglas

We do not sit as a super-legislature to weigh the wisdom of legislation.

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.

The Second Amendment reveals a profound principle of American government - the principle of civilian ascendency over the military.

My faith is that the only soul a man must save is his own.

The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.

The liberties of none are safe unless the liberties of all are protected.

Common sense often makes good law.

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.

Why cannot we work at cooperative schemes and search for the common ground binding all mankind together?

The right to work, I had assumed, was the most precious liberty that man possesses. Man has indeed as much right to work as he has to live, to be free, to own property.

As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such a twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become unwitting victims of darkness.

The First Amendment makes confidence in the common sense of our people and in the maturity of their judgement the great postulate of our democracy.

I have the same confidence in the ability of our people to reject noxious literature as I have in their capacity to sort out the true from the false in theology, economics, or any other field.

Fear of ideas makes us impotent and ineffective.

The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom.

Ideas are indeed the most dangerous weapons in the world. Our ideas of freedom are the most powerful political weapons man has ever forged.

The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedoms.