The challenge to our liberties comes frequently not from those who consciously seek to destroy our system of government, but from men of goodwill - good men who allow their proper concerns to blind them to the fact that what they propose to accomplish involves an impairment of liberty.
William O. DouglasIdeas are indeed the most dangerous weapons in the world. Our ideas of freedom are the most powerful political weapons man has ever forged.
William O. DouglasThe use of violence as an instrument of persuasion is therefore inviting and seems to the discontented to be the only effective protest.
William O. DouglasSecurity can only be achieved through constant change, through discarding old ideas that have outlived their usefulness and adapting others to current facts.
William O. DouglasAcceptance by government of a dissident press is a measure of the maturity of a nation.
William O. DouglasRealization of this need means adults must awaken to the urgency of the young people's unrest-in other words there must be created an adult unrest against the inequities and injustices in the present system. If the government is in jeopardy, it is not because we are unable to cope with revolutionary situations. Jeopardy means that either the leaders or the people do not realize they have all the tools required to make the revolution come true. The tools and the opportunity exist. Only the moral imagination is missing.
William O. Douglas