Louis D. Brandeis Quotes

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

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.

We are not won by arguments that we can analyze, but by tone and temper; by the manner, which is the man himself.

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.

What is Americanization? It manifests itself, in a superficial way, when the immigrant adopts the clothes, the manners and the customs generally prevailing here. Far more important is the manifestation presented when he substitutes for his mother tongue the English language as the common medium of speech.

Democracy rests upon two pillars: one, the principle that all men are equally entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; and the other, the conviction that such equal opportunity will most advance civilization.

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.

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.

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

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

Repression breeds hate; hate menaces stable government.

However great his outward conformity, the immigrant is not Americanized unless his interests and affections have become deeply rooted here. And we properly demand of the immigrant even more than this. He must be brought into complete harmony with our ideals and aspirations and cooperate with us for their attainment.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Ways may someday 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.

Democracy is moral before it is political.

The US States are our laboratories of democracy.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

The protection guaranteed by the Amendments is much broader in scope. The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man's spiritual nature, of his feelings, and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone - the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the Government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment. And the use, as evidence in a criminal proceeding, of facts ascertained by such intrusion must be deemed a violation of the Fifth.

[Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928) (dissenting)]

The most important thing we do is not doing.

The most important political office is that of private citizen.

I live in Alexandria, Virginia. Near the Supreme Court chambers is a toll bridge across the Potomac. When in a rush, I pay the dollar toll and get home early. However, I usually drive outside the downtown section of the city and cross the Potomac on a free bridge. This bridge was placed outside the downtown Washington, DC area to serve a useful social service, getting drivers to drive the extra mile and help alleviate congestion during the rush hour. If I went over the toll bridge and through the barrier without paying the toll, I would be committing tax evasion ... If, however, I drive the extra mile and drive outside the city of Washington to the free bridge, I am using a legitimate, logical and suitable method of tax avoidance, and am performing a useful social service by doing so. For my tax evasion, I should be punished. For my tax avoidance, I should be commended. The tragedy of life today is that so few people know that the free bridge even exists.

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.

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

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

When those of Jewish blood exhibit moral or intellectual superiority, genius or special talent, we feel pride in them, even if they have abjured the faith like Spinoza, Marx, Disraeli or Heine. Despite the meditations of pundits or the decrees of council, our own instincts and acts, and those of others, have defined for us the term 'Jew.'

Neutrality is at times a graver sin than belligerence.

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

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 duties of the office of private citizen cannot under a republican form of government be neglected without serious injury to the public.

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

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

Behind every argument is someone's ignorance.

And it is also immaterial that the intrusion was in aid of law enforcement. 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 insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding. Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting), overruled by Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967).

During most of my life, my contact with Jews and Judaism was slight. I gave little thought to their problems, save in asking myself, from time to time, whether we were showing by our lives due appreciation of the opportunities which this hospitable country affords. My approach to Zionism was through Americanism.

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.

We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.

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

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

People fear witches, and burn women.

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 insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
[Olmstead v. U.S., 277 U.S. 438 (1928) (dissenting)]

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.

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

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.

What are the American ideals? They are the development of the individual for his own and the common good; the development of the individual through liberty; and the attainment of the common good through democracy and social justice.

Men feared witches and burned women.

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

The difference between a nation and a nationality is clear, but it is not always observed. Likeness between members is the essence of nationality, but the members of a nation may be very different. A nation may be composed of many nationalities, as some of the most successful nations are.

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 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 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."
~Louis D. Brandeis

Sunshine is the greatest disinfectant

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

The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.

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

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