William O. Douglas Quotes

Satisfy the public mind that their liberties will be perpetual.

Trial by jury of facts where they arise is one of the greatest securities of the lives, liberties and estates of the people.

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

I have a personal belief that you never have to give up liberty for security. You can still provide security without sacrificing our Bill of Rights.

Liberty cannot be guaranteed by law. Nor by any thing else except the resolution of free citizens to defend their liberties.

The liberties of a people depend on their own constant attention to its preservation.

Individual liberty depends upon keeping government under control.

I fear you do not fully comprehend the danger of abridging the liberties of the people. Nothing but the sternest necessity can ever justify it. A government had better go to the extreme of toleration, than to do aught that could be construed into an interference with, or to jeopardize in any degree, the common rights of its citizens.

If people cannot limit government they will not for long be free.

Government is about coercion. Limiting government is the single most important instrument for guaranteeing liberty. We're working on a third generation which has little in the way of education about what our Constitution means and why it was written. Thus, we've fallen easy prey to charlatens, quacks, and hustlers.

If there is anything which it is the duty of the whole people to never entrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity of their own liberties and institutions.

Government is a guarantor of liberty and is compatible with liberty only if its range is adequately restricted to the preservation of what is called economic freedom.

That's the key - to maintain the garden of liberty, right? This is a generational thing that we must all do continuously. We only have the rights that we protect. It doesn't matter what we say or think we have. It's not enough to believe in something; it matters what we actually defend.

Whether you have an abortion, what you put in your own body, with whom you have sex - these are not affairs of the state. A government does not exist to control the citizens. When it does, it is a tyranny, and must be fought. The tree of liberty, Jefferson warned us, must be refreshed with the blood of tyrants and patriots.

If a passion for freedom is not in vogue, patriots may sound the alarm till they are weary. The Act of Habeas Corpus, by which prisoners may insist on being brought to trial within a limited time, is the corner stone of our liberty.

We have a democracy within the bounds of a constitution which provides certain guarantees related to the basic humanity of every person. I think that's the best way to go.

In Texas, we hold very dear to intrusions against our personal liberty. We fight very hard against that.

We must educate ourselves and others about our precious civil liberties to ensure that we never accept demands that we give up our Constitution so that the government can pretend to protect us.

We must not then depend alone upon the love of liberty in the soul of man for its preservation.

I do esteem individual liberty above everything. What is a nation for, but to secure the maximum liberty to every individual?

The people are the ultimate guardians of their own liberties. In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy . . . Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone.

The benefits of the constitution and laws are alike for all; and the great Elohim has given me the privilege of having the benefits of the constitution and the writ of habeas corpus.

Just as man must have liberty to think and speak, so he must have liberty in food, dress, and marriage, and in every other thing, so long as he does not injure others.

The chief difference [between totalitarian and free countries] is that only the totalitarians appear clearly to know how they want to achieve that result, while the free world has only its past achievements to show, being by its very nature unable to offer any detailed "plan" for further growth.

To be governed ... is to be watched, inspected, directed, indoctrinated, numbered, estimated, regulated, commanded, controlled, law-driven, preached at, spied upon, censured, checked, valued, enrolled - by creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so.