Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience (in this case, the judge or the jury) that hissed yesterday may applaud today, even for the same performance.
William O. DouglasRestriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.
William O. DouglasThe Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.
William O. DouglasThe privacy and dignity of our citizens is being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen - a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a life.
William O. Douglas