William O. Douglas Quotes

We must never lose sight of the fact that the law has a moral foundation, and we must never fail to ask ourselves not only what the law is, but what the law should be.

Leadership is not manifested by coercion, even against the resented. Greatness is not manifested by unlimited pragmatism, which places such a high premium on the end justifying any means and any methods.

You cannot strengthen the law by violating the law.

A first principle of Anglo-American jurisprudence is that the ends do not justify the means.

I totally reject and have rejected throughout my entire career the proposition that the end justifies the means or that a judge should decide cases based on a desire to reach a certain outcome.

In just about every area of society, there's nothing more important than ethics.

Greatness is not manifested by unlimited pragmatism, which places such a high premium on the end justifying any means and any methods.

I learned one thing in Watergate: I was well-intentioned but rationalized illegal behavior. You cannot live your life other than walking in the truth. Your means are as important as your ends.

I believe that it is an unchanging value of democracy that ends cannot justify the means in politics.

It is the duty of government to make it difficult for people to do wrong, easy to do right.

Be thou incapable of change in that which is right, and men will rely upon thee. Establish unto thyself principles of action; and see that thou ever act according to them. First know that thy principles are just, and then be thou.

If principles don't determine what you are going to pass or do, then power will.

In civilized life, law floats in a sea of ethics. Each is indispensable to civilization. Without law, we should be at the mercy of the least scrupulous; without ethics, law could not exist.

Some voices are calling on America to circle the wagons. Some are even saying that our enemies do worse, so we should respond in kind. The problem here is that this is America. This is a constitutional republic based on the rule of law and equal respect for all persons. We can’t pretend that we can bend the rules any which way. We made the rules for ourselves. We have to live by them

I know some say, let us have good laws, and no matter for the men that execute them: but let them consider, that though good laws do well, good men do better: for good laws may want good men, and be abolished or evaded by ill mend but good men will never want good laws, nor suffer ill ones.

Consciences keep silence more often than they should, that's why laws were created.

Law is, for the most part, positive or mandatory. It prescribes certain duties which I am to do as the condition of my civic protection. Conscience is, for the most part, negative or prohibitory in its operation. It sets before me certain evils to be undone or repented of. Thus law aims to exalt its subject, or make him conventionally righteous; while conscience aims to humiliate him

The ends do not always justify the means

The means you use must be as pure as the ends you seek.

To declare that in the administration of criminal law the end justifies the means -- to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure conviction of a private criminal -- would bring terrible retribution.

Seeking justice is always our goal, but we see many too willing to circumvent that.

It's about the principles, it's about the rule of law. You don't have to stay silent when you see something that you don't like that is inconsistent of these timeless principles.

I would never ever knowingly break the law.

The last degree of honesty has always been, and is still considered incompatible with statesmanship. To hunger and thirst after righteousness has been naturally, as it were, supposed a disqualification for affairs.

A nation,” he heard himself say, “consists of its laws. A nation does not consist of its situation at a given time. If an individual’s morals are situational, that individual is without morals. If a nation’s laws are situational, that nation has no laws, and soon isn’t a nation.