WIST

Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.

Justice Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) US Supreme Court (1916-39)
“What Publicity Can Do,” Harper’s Weekly (20 Dec 1913)

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

Justice Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) US Supreme Court (1916-39)
(Attributed)

The most important political office is that of private citizen.

Justice Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) US Supreme Court (1916-39)
(Attributed)

Like the course of the heavenly bodies, harmony in national life is a resultant of the struggle between contending forces. In the frank expression of conflicting opinions lies the greatest promise of wisdom in governmental action.

Justice Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) US Supreme Court (1916-39)
(Attributed)

Organization can never be a substitute for initiative and for judgment.

Justice Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) US Supreme Court (1916-39)
Business — A Profession (1914)

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

Justice Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) US Supreme Court (1916-39)
Business — A Profession (1914)

The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man’s spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone — the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.

Justice Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) US Supreme Court (1916-39)
Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928) [Dissent]

Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties. … They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that without free speech and assembly discussion would be futile; that with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of  noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American Government.

Justice Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) US Supreme Court (1916-39)
Whitney v. California (1927)

No danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present, unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is opportunity for full discussion. 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.

Justice Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) US Supreme Court (1916-39)
Whitney v. California (1927)

Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify oppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.

Justice Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) US Supreme Court (1916-39)
Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)

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

Justice Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) US Supreme Court (1916-39)
Attributed (1912)

The doctrine of the separation of powers was adopted by the Convention of 1787, not to promote efficiency but to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power. The purpose was, not to avoid friction, but, by means of the inevitable friction incident to the distribution of the governmental powers among three departments, to save the people from autocracy.

Justice Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) US Supreme Court (1916-39)
Dissent, Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 293, (1926).

The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness

Justice Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) US Supreme Court (1916-39)
Dissent, Olmstead v. United States, 277 US 438 (1928)

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficial. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greater dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.

Justice Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) US Supreme Court (1916-39)
Dissent, Olmstead v. United States, 277 US 438 (1928)
Full decision.

Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its 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 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 retribution.

Justice Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) US Supreme Court (1916-39)
Dissent, Olmstead v. United States, 277 US 438 (1928)

Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously.

Justice Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) US Supreme Court (1916-39)
Dissent, Olmstead v. United States, 277 US 438 (1928)
Full decision.