128 Quotes by Louis D. Brandeis

We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.

Behind every argument is someone’s ignorance.

But sporadic evidence indicates how great are the possibilities of accumulation when one has the use of “other people’s money.

Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the state was to make men free to develop their faculties.

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

When once a banker has entered the Board – whatever may have been the occasion – his grip proves tenacious and his influence usually supreme; for he controls the supply of new money.

And it is also immaterial that the intrusion was in aid of law enforcement. 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 insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.

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.

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.