W

William O. Douglas

7 quotes

Topics:

Quotes by William O. Douglas

"Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred."

- William O. Douglas

Love

"Men may believe what they cannot prove. They may not be put to the proof of their religious doctrines or beliefs. Religious experiences which are as real as life to some may be incomprehensible to others."

- William O. Douglas

Belief

"It is procedure that spells much of the difference between rule of law and rule by whim or caprice."

- William O. Douglas

Responsibility

"I would rather create a precedent than find one."

- William O. Douglas

Ambition

"America is of course sovereign; but her sovereignty is woven in an international web that makes her one of the family of nations. The ties with all the continents are close-commercially as well as culturally. Our concerns are planetary, beyond sunrises and sunsets. Citizenship implicates us in those problems and perplexities, as well as in domestic ones. We cannot exercise and enjoy citizenship in world perspective without the right to travel abroad; and I see no constitutional way to curb it unless, as I said, there is the power to detain."

- William O. Douglas

Vision

"Yet as I read the Constitution, one of its essential purposes was to take government off the backs of people and keep it off."

- William O. Douglas

Philosophy

"This freedom of movement is the very essence of our free society, setting us apart. Like the right of assembly and the right of association, it often makes all other rights meaningful-knowing, studying, arguing, exploring, conversing, observing and even thinking. Once the right to travel is curtailed, all other rights suffer, just as when curfew or home detention is placed on a person."

- William O. Douglas

Liberation