William O Douglas quotes

We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.

Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience that hissed yesterday may applaud today, even for the same performance.

Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred.

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

We do not sit as a superlegislature to weigh the wisdom of legislation.

One who comes to the Court must come to adore, not to protest. That's the new gloss on the 1st Amendment.

Tell the FBI that the kidnappers should pick out a judge that Nixon wants back.

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.

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

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

Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred.