Louis d. brandeis quotes

It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.

Sunshine is the greatest disinfectant

Neutrality is at times a graver sin than belligerence.

Organisation can never be a substitute for initiative and for judgement.

No danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is an opportunity for full discussion. Only an emergency can justify repression.

Democracy is moral before it is political.

We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.

If you will just start with the idea that this is a hard world, it will all be much simpler.

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.

Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.

The best of wages will not compensate for excessively long working hours which undermine heath.

The right most valued by all civilized men is the right to be left alone.

Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty.

The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.

If we would guide by the light of reason we must let our minds be bold.

In a democracy, the most important office is the office of citizen

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.

Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly.

There is a spark of idealism within every individual which can be fanned into flame and bring forth extraordinary results.

The Jews are a Distinct Nationality regardless of where they live, their station in life or their shades of belief, and his clarion call to all the Jews in the world to 'organize, organize, organize,' until every Jew in America must stand up and be counted - counted with us - or prove himself, wittingly or unwittingly, of the few who are against their own people.

Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.

Behind every argument is someone's ignorance.

Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the state was to make men free to develop their faculties... They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty... that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government.

The makers of our Constitution . . . conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone - the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.

Anyone who critically analyzes a business learns this: that the success or failure of an enterprise depends usually upon one man.

We learned long ago that liberty could be preserved only by limiting in some way the freedom of action of individuals; that otherwise liberty would necessarily yield to absolutism; and in the same way we have learned that unless there be regulation of competition, its excesses will lead to the destruction of competition, and monopoly will take its place.

Subtler and more far-reaching means of invading privacy have become available to the government. Discovery and invention have made it possible for the government, by means far more effective than stretching upon the rack, to obtain disclosure in court of what is whispered in the closet.

I used to oppose women's suffrage and I've come to support it because these women have convinced me that we need full gender equality for full democratic participation.

I abhor averages. I like the individual case. A man may have six meals one day and none the next, making an average of three meals per day, but that is not a good way to live.

The world presents enough problems if you believe it to be a world of law and order; do not add to them by believing it to be a world of miracles.

In differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress.

It is one of the greatest economic errors to put any limitation upon production.We have not the power to produce more than there is a potential to consume.

We shall have lost something vital and beyond price on the day when the state denies us the right to resort to force.

If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.

I rise early because no day is long enough for a day's work.

Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards.

No system of regulation can safely be substituted for the operation of individual liberty as expressed in competition.

The greatest factors making for communism, socialism or anarchy among a free people are the excesses of capital. The talk of the agitator does not advance socialism one step. The great captains of industry and finance... are the chief makers of socialism.

Nearly all legislation involves a weighing of public needs as against private desires; and likewise a weighing of relative social values.

People fear witches, and burn women.

There are no shortcuts in evolution.

The US States are our laboratories of democracy.

It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.

There are better mothers than disaster. A native land is the best of all mothers. We American Jews have a native land we love. But it is even better to have a native land who loves us.

Crime is contagious....if the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law.

The most important thing we do is not doing.

To be good Americans, we must be better Jews, and to be better Jews, we must become Zionists.

At the foundation of our civil liberties lies the principle that denies to government officials an exceptional position before the law and which subjects them to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen.

Men long for an afterlife in which there apparently is nothing to do but delight in heaven's wonders.

The only title in our democracy superior to that of President is the title of citizen.

Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.

Our government... teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.

What I have desired to do is to make the people of Boston realize that the most important office, and the one which all of us can and should fill, is that of private citizen.

The function of the press is very high. It is almost holy. It ought to serve as a forum for the people, through which the people may know freely what is going on. To misstate or suppress the news is a breach of trust.

Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.

The goose that lays golden eggs has been considered a most valuable possession. But even more profitable is the privilege of taking the golden eggs laid by somebody else's goose. The investment bankers and their associates now enjoy that privilege.

There is no good writing; there is only good rewriting.

No one can really pull you up very high - you lose your grip on the rope. But on your own two feet you can climb mountains.

The general rule of law is, that the noblest of human productions knowledge, truths ascertained, conceptions and ideas become, after voluntary communication to others, free as the air to common use.

... fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies; and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones.

There is no such thing as an innocent purchaser of stocks.

Strong, responsible unions are essential to industrial fair play. Without them the labor bargain is wholly one-sided.

Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the state was to make men free to develop their faculties.

Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases.

If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.

Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify oppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.

The logic of words should yield to the logic of realities.

The tax-exempt privilege is a feature always reflected in the market price of [municipal] bonds. The investor pays for it.

Men feared witches and burned women.

In the frank expression of conflicting opinions lies the greatest promise of wisdom in governmental action.

The most important office, and the one which all of us can and should fill, is that of private citizen.

Sunshine is the best disinfectant

History is not life, but since only life makes history, the union of the two is obvious.

The constitutional right of free speech has been declared to be the same in peace and war. In peace, too, men may differ widely as to what loyalty to our country demands, and an intolerant majority, swayed by passion or by fear, may be prone in the future, as it has been in the past, to stamp as disloyal opinions with which it disagrees.

Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill it teaches the whole people by example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means - to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal - would bring terrible retributions.

America has believed that in differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress. It acted on this belief; it has advanced human happiness, and it has prospered.

Behind every argument is somebody's ignorance. Rediscover the foundation of truth and the purpose and causes of dispute immediately disappear.

Those who won our independence... valued liberty as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.

If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you.

Repression breeds hate; hate menaces stable government.

Ownership has been separated from control; and this separation has removed many of the checks which formerly operated to curb the misuse of wealth and power.

If you would venture, let your mind be bold . . . not reckless but bold.

The progress of science in furnishing the government with means of espionage is not likely to stop with wire tapping. Ways may some day be developed by which the government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home. Advances in the psychic and related sciences may bring means of exploring unexpressed beliefs, thoughts and emotions. 'That places the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer' was said by James Otis of much lesser intrusions than these.

There is no great writing, only great rewriting.

In business, the earning of profit is something more than an incident of success. It is an essential condition of success. It is an essential condition of success because the continued absence of profit itself spells failure.

I think all of our human Experience shows that no one with absolute power can be trusted to give it up even in part

The old idea of a good bargain was a transaction in which one man got the better of another. The new idea of a good contract is a transaction which is good for both parties to it.

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.

We gain nothing by trading the tyranny of capital for the tyranny of labor.

Strong, responsible unions are essential to industrial fair play. Without them the labor bargain is wholly one-sided. The parties to the labor contract must be nearly equal in strength if justice is to be worked out, and this means that the workers must be organized and that their organizations must be recognized by employers as a condition precedent to industrial peace.