William O. Douglas - Law Quotes

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When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional right to free speech, it acts lawlessly; and the citizen can take matters in his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all.

William O. Douglas

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

William O. Douglas

That seems to us to be the common sense of the matter; and common sense often makes good law.

William O. Douglas

I worked among the very, very poor, the migrant laborers, the Chicanos and the IWWs who I saw being shot at by the police. I saw cruelty and hardness, and my impulse was to be a force in other developments in the law.

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.

William O. Douglas