William O. Douglas Quotes

I've always hated oppression.

No other offense has ever been visited with such severe penalties as seeking to help the oppressed.

I try to be outraged by things that other people are just very accepting of, as though they're normal and can't be changed. A lot of what I write about is, 'Hey, you know, this stuff is really awful, and it doesn't need to be, and that's why it's so offensive.' Things should be better.

If they come for me in the morning, they will come for you at night.

Alas, how many have been persecuted for the wrong of having been right?

People don't realize what's really going on in this country. There are a lot things that are going on that are unjust. People aren't being held accountable for. And that's something that needs to change. That's something that this country stands for: freedom, liberty and justice for all.

As night-fall does not come at once, neither does oppression...It is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become victims of the darkness.

Injustice makes the rules, and courage breaks them.

To think, I have had more than 60 years of hard struggle for a little liberty, and then to die without it seems so cruel.

The enemies of the future are always the very nicest people.

Discrimination is a disease.

Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for me.

The glaring injustice is there for all who are not blinded by prejudice to see.

Violence and racism are bad. Whenever they occur they are to be condemned and we should not turn a blind eye to them.

I have not killed anyone. They will not let me.

As there is oppression of the majority such oppression will be fought with increasing hatred.

I do think that this planet is a totally unjust planet. I mean throughout history - history paints a beautiful picture when it's written by the victorious, but it's a planet that belongs to the strong and the more able, and usually they are tyrants. So basically, I don't see justice happening to the crushed and the weak.

Repression or oppression never yet succeeded in crushing the truth or redressing a wrong.

Social injustice is such a familiar phenomenon ... that it is readily regarded as something natural, even by its victims.

As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression.

Social change can be painful for all involved—oppressor and oppressed.

Injustice in this world is not something comparative; the wrong is deep, clear, and absolute in each private fate.

Acts of injustice done Between the setting and the rising sun In history lie like bones, each one

Our sweat and our blood have fallen on this land to make other men rich. The pilgrimage is a witness to the suffering we have seen for generations

How can you stand for the national anthem of a nation that preaches and propagates, 'freedom and justice for all,' that is so unjust to so many of the people living there?