William O. Douglas Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Trees have judicial standing, and probably grass too.

  William O. Douglas

  Tree, Grass, Judicial

  4 Copy quote

• One aspect of modern life which has gone far to stifle men is the rapid growth of tremendous corporations. Enormous spiritual sacrifices are made in the transformation of shopkeepers into employees... The disappearance of free enterprise has led to a submergence of the individual in the impersonal corporation in much the same manner as he has been submerged in the state in other lands.

  William O. Douglas

  Spiritual, Sacrifice, Men

  William O. Douglas' speech at annual dinner of Fordham University Alumni Association in New York City, February 9, 1939.

  17 Copy quote

• 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

  Compelling Reason, Race, Quality

  "DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U.S. 312". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. April 23, 1974.

  8 Copy quote

• We must realize that today's establishment is the new George III. Whether it will continue to adhere to his tactics, we do not know. If it does, the redress, honored in tradition, is also revolution.

  William O. Douglas

  Doe, Tactics, Today

  WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS (1970). “POINTS OF REBELLION”

  7 Copy quote

• A road is a dagger placed in the heart of a wilderness.

  William O. Douglas

  Heart, Daggers, Wilderness

  5 Copy quote

• I've often thought that if planners were botanists, zoologists, geologists, and people who know about the earth, we would have much more wisdom in such planning than we have when we leave it to the engineers.

  William O. Douglas

  People, Zoologist, City Planning

  15 Copy quote

• Realization of this need means adults must awaken to the urgency of the young people's unrest-in other words there must be created an adult unrest against the inequities and injustices in the present system. If the government is in jeopardy, it is not because we are unable to cope with revolutionary situations. Jeopardy means that either the leaders or the people do not realize they have all the tools required to make the revolution come true. The tools and the opportunity exist. Only the moral imagination is missing.

  William O. Douglas

  Mean, Opportunity, Government

  WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS (1970). “POINTS OF REBELLION”

  7 Copy quote

• The law is not a series of calculating machines where answers come tumbling out when the right levers are pushed.

  William O. Douglas

  Law, Machines, Tumbling

  "The Dissent: A Safeguard of Democracy". William O. Douglas, "Journal of the American Judicature Society", Volume 32, 1948.

  7 Copy quote

• Hiking a ridge, a meadow, or a river bottom, is as healthy a form of exercise as one can get. Hiking seems to put all the body cells back into rhythm. Ten to twenty miles on a trail puts one to bed with his cares unraveled.

  William O. Douglas

  Nature, Exercise, Cells

  25 Copy quote

• 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.

  William O. Douglas

  Abuse, Society, Liberty

  34 Copy quote

• 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.

  William O. Douglas

  Wall, Rights, Law

  35 Copy quote

• The interests of the corporation state are to convert all the riches of the earth into dollars.

  William O. Douglas

  Dollars, Earth, Corporations

  WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS (1970). “POINTS OF REBELLION”

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Animal, Lemmings, Woodpeckers

  13 Copy quote

• 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

  Men, Civilization, Needs

  WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS (1960). “My Wilderness THE PACIFIC WEST”

  23 Copy quote

• The river, for example, is the living symbol of all the life it sustains or nourishes - fish, aquatic insects, water ouzels, otter, fisher, deer, elk, bear, and all other animals, including man, who are dependent on it or who enjoy it for its sight, its sound, or its life. The river as plaintiff speaks for the ecological unit of life that is part of it.

  William O. Douglas

  Men, Animal, Rivers

  "Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. April 19, 1972.

  35 Copy quote

• 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

  Philosophy, Believe, Political

  7 Copy quote

• Those in power are blind devotees to private enterprise. They accept that degree of socialism implicit in the vast subsidies to the military-industrial-complex, but not that type of socialism which maintains public projects for the disemployed and the unemployed alike.

  William O. Douglas

  Military, Subsidies, Degrees

  6 Copy quote

• 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.

  William O. Douglas

  Attitude, Fate, Expression

  "The One Un-American Act". William O. Douglas' speech to the Author's Guild Council in New York on receiving the 1951 Lauterbach Award, December 3, 1952.

  20 Copy quote

• 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

  Stars, Men, Wind

  21 Copy quote

• 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

  Beautiful, Spiritual, Community

  7 Copy quote

• Our upside down welfare state is socialism for the rich, free enterprise for the poor.

  William O. Douglas

  Upside Down, Socialism, Rich

  10 Copy quote

• Man is about to be an automaton; he is identifiable only in the computer. As a person of worth and creativity, as a being with an infinite potential, he retreats and battles the forces that make him inhuman. The dissent we witness is a reaffirmation of faith in man; it is protest against living under rules and prejudices and attitudes that produce the extremes of wealth and poverty and that make us dedicated to the destruction of people through arms, bombs, and gases, and that prepare us to think alike and be submissive objects for the regime of the computer.

  William O. Douglas

  Attitude, Creativity, Men

  "Points of Rebellion". Book by William O. Douglas, 1970.

  39 Copy quote

• The right to revolt has sources deep in our history.

  William O. Douglas

  Religious, War, Political

  William O. Douglas (1954). “An Almanac of Liberty”

  10 Copy quote

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

  William O. Douglas

  Military, Men, America

  24 Copy quote

• I would rather create a precedent than find one.

  William O. Douglas

  Law, Precedent

  8 Copy quote

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