Louis Brandeis quotes - page 3

In the frank expression of conflicting opinions lies the greatest promise of wisdom in governmental action. (Louis Brandeis)
Men long for an afterlife in which there apparently is nothing to do but delight in heaven's wonders. View quote
Louis Brandeis
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. View quote
Louis Brandeis
Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done. View quote
Louis Brandeis
Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. View quote
Louis Brandeis
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. View quote
Louis Brandeis
Neutrality is at times a graver sin than belligerence. View quote
Louis Brandeis
There are no shortcuts in evolution. View quote
Louis Brandeis
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. View quote
Louis Brandeis
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. 1 To Lord Camden a far slighter intrusion seemed 'subversive of all the comforts of society. View quote
Louis Brandeis
Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the state was to make men free to develop their faculties, and that in its government the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary. 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. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that without free speech and assembly discussion would be futile; that with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government. (Louis Brandeis)
The court bows to the lessons of experience and the force of better reasoning, recognizing that the process of trial and error, so fruitful in the physical sciences, is appropriate also in the judicial function. View quote
Louis Brandeis
Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman. View quote
Louis Brandeis
We are not won by arguments that we can analyze, but by tone and temper; by the manner, which is the man himself. View quote
Louis Brandeis
I think all of our human Experience shows that no one with absolute power can be trusted to give it up even in part. View quote
Louis Brandeis
Nearly all legislation involves a weighing of public needs as against private desires; and likewise a weighing of relative social values. View quote
Louis Brandeis
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. View quote
Louis Brandeis
The most important political office is that of the private citizen. View quote
Louis Brandeis