William O. DouglasThinkers

The 1st Amendment makes confidence in the common sense of our people and in the maturity of their judgement the great postulate of our democracy.

The 4th Amendment is grounded in the idea that it is better that the guilty sometimes go free than that the citizens be subject to easy arrest.

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.

First Amendment is an amendment that deprives the States of any power to pass on the value, the propriety, or the morality of a particular expression, for the censor is always quick to justify his function in terms that are protective of society.

The First Amendment is an amendment that requires that we must allow protests even against the moral code that the standard of the day sets for the community.

Free speech is a right under our system of government whose function is to invite dispute, to invite a condition of unrest, create dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger.

Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience (in this case, the judge or the jury) that hissed yesterday may applaud today, even for the same performance.

Freedom of movement is the very essence of our free society -- once the right to travel is curtailed, all other rights suffer.

Law is often well-made when it's made by common sense.

A Precedent is better to create than to find.

A Road is a dagger placed in the heart of a wilderness.