William O. Douglas

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

“Common sense often makes good law.”

“The 5th 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 right to revolt has sources deep in our history.”

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

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

“The association promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects. Yet it is an association for as noble a purpose as any involved in any prior decisions.”

“The critical point is that the Constitution places the right of silence beyond the reach of government.”

“These examples and many others demonstrate an alarming trend whereby the privacy and dignity of our citizens is 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 man's life at”

“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.”

“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.”

“It seemed to me that I had barely reached the Court when people were trying to get me off.”

“The American government is premised on the theory that if the individual man is to be free, his ideas, his beliefs, his ideology, his philosophy, must be placed beyond the reach of government.”

“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 liberties of none are safe unless the liberties of all are protected.”

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

“We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; where there are no secrets from govern”

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

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

“No patent medicine was ever put to wider and more varied use than the Fourteenth Amendment.”