Louis D. Brandeis Quotes

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  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.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Wisdom, Country, Power

  138 Copy quote

• 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.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Teacher, Mean, Men

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

  128 Copy quote

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

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Men, Liberty, Libertarian

  51 Copy quote

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

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Democracy, President, Titles

  106 Copy quote

• 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.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Change, Men, Law

  113 Copy quote

• 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.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Freedom, Independent, Men

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

  116 Copy quote

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

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Perseverance, Motivation, Fear

  118 Copy quote

• 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.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  People, News, May

  60 Copy quote

• Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Nature, Publicity, Being The Best

  Other People's Money ch. 5 (1914) See RalphWaldo Emerson 42

  61 Copy quote

• 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.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Education, Time, Evil

  Whitney v. California (concurring opinion) (1927) See OliverWendell Holmes, Jr. 29

  92 Copy quote

• The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  War, Hero, People

  Louis Dembitz Brandeis, Louis D. Brandeis School of Law (2006). “Brandeis at 150: the Louisville perspective : a sesquicentennial commemoration”

  75 Copy quote

• The most important office, and the one which all of us can and should fill, is that of private citizen.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Office, House, Political

  "Brandeis: A Free Man's Life". Book by Alpheus Thomas Mason, 1946.

  114 Copy quote

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

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Respect, Law, Desire

  "A Treasury of Jewish Quotations". Book by Joseph L. Baron, 1996.

  73 Copy quote

• If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Motivational, Life Is Hard, Hard Life

  11 Copy quote

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

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Lying, Progress, Differentiation

  12 Copy quote

• 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.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Lying, Government, Law

  "Burdeau v. McDowell, 256 U.S. 465, 477". Dissenting opinion, 1921.

  12 Copy quote

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

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Work, Long, Enough

  6 Copy quote

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

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Peace, Freedom, War

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

  32 Copy quote

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

  Louis D. Brandeis

  War, Government, Law

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

  29 Copy quote

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

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Time, Deny, Lost

  10 Copy quote

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

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Competition, Liberty, Regulation

  9 Copy quote

• 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.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Party, Men, Ideas

  16 Copy quote

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

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Ignorance, Foundation, Purpose

  27 Copy quote

• ... 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.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Lying, Hate, Opportunity

  Whitney v. California (concurring opinion) (1927)

  63 Copy quote

• 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.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Strong, Party, Mean

  "The Curse of Bigness: Miscellaneous Papers of Louis D. Brandeis". Book by Osmond Kessler Fraenkel and Clarence Martin Lewis, 1965.

  70 Copy quote

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