"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

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

- William O. Douglas

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

- William O. Douglas

"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

"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