Louis D. Brandeis Quotations

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Let no American imagine that Zionism is inconsistent with patriotism. Multiple loyalties are objectionable only if they are inconsistent.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Neutrality is at times a graver sin than belligerence.

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.

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.

A man is a better citizen of the United States for being also a loyal citizen of his state and of his city; for being loyal to his family and to his profession or trade; for being loyal to his college or his lodge.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

The most important political office is that of the private citizen.

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.

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.

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

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.

It is not wealth, it is not station, it is not social standing and ambition which can make us worthy of the Jewish name, of the Jewish heritage. To be worthy of them, we must live up to and with them. We must regard ourselves their custodians.

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.'

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

The right to be alone / the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized man.

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.

Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Sunshine is the best disinfectant

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

The most important office... that of private citizen.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Men feared witches and burned women.

Sunshine is the greatest disinfectant

Repression breeds hate; hate menaces stable government.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Democracy is moral before it is political.

There are no shortcuts in evolution.

The most important thing we do is not doing.

The US States are our laboratories of democracy.

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

There is no great writing, only great 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.

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

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.

Behind every argument is someone's ignorance.

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

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 the fundamental principle of the American government.

Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.

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

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.

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

The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.

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

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.

... 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.

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.

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.

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.