19 Quotes by William Douglas

The critical point is that the Constitution places the right of silence beyond the reach of government.

There are only two choices: A police state in which all dissent is suppressed or rigidly controlled; or a society where law is responsive to human needs. If society is to be responsive to human needs, a vast restructuring of our laws is essential.

Mountains have a decent influence on men. I have never met along the trails of the high mountains a mean man who would cheat and steal. Certainly most men who are raised there or who work there are as wholesome as the mountains themselves. Those who explore them or foot or horseback usually are open, friendly men.

Ignorance and illiteracy are obviously not synonymous; even illiterate masses can cast their ballots with intelligence, once they are informed.

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.

I sat some minutes, lost in my thoughts of the beauty of the place.

We look to the heavens for help and uplift, but it is to the earth we are chained; it is from the earth that we must find our sustenance; it is on the earth that we must find solutions to the problems that promise to destroy all life here.

The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom.

I've often thought that if our zoning boards could be put in charge of botanists, of zoologists and geologists, and people who know about the earth, we would have much more wisdom in such planning than we have when we leave it to the engineers.