Louis D. Brandeis Quotes & Sayings

The makers of our Constitution ... conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone - the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. — Louis D. Brandeis

No one can really pull you up very high - you lose your grip on the rope. But on your own two feet you can climb mountains. — Louis D. Brandeis

In differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress. — Louis D. Brandeis

Subtler and more far-reaching means of invading privacy have become available to the government. Discovery and invention have made it possible for the government, by means far more effective than stretching upon the rack, to obtain disclosure in court of what is whispered in the closet. — 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. — Louis D. Brandeis

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

If we would guide by the light of reason, we must let our minds be bold. — Louis D. Brandeis

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

There are no shortcuts in evolution. — Louis D. Brandeis

It is one of the greatest economic errors to put any limitation upon production.We have not the power to produce more than there is a potential to consume. — Louis D. Brandeis

It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country. — Louis D. Brandeis

The most important thing we do is not doing. — Louis D. Brandeis

Neutrality is at times a graver sin than belligerence. — Louis D. Brandeis

If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you. — Louis D. Brandeis

During most of my life, my contact with Jews and Judaism was slight. I gave little thought to their problems, save in asking myself, from time to time, whether we were showing by our lives due appreciation of the opportunities which this hospitable country affords. My approach to Zionism was through Americanism. — Louis D. Brandeis

To be good Americans, we must be better Jews, and to be better Jews, we must become Zionists. — Louis D. Brandeis

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

No system of regulation can safely be substituted for the operation of individual liberty as expressed in competition. — Louis D. Brandeis

The only title in our democracy superior to that of President is the title of citizen. — Louis D. Brandeis

The tax-exempt privilege is a feature always reflected in the market price of [municipal] bonds. The investor pays for it. — Louis D. Brandeis

The greatest factors making for communism, socialism or anarchy among a free people are the excesses of capital. The talk of the agitator does not advance socialism one step. The great captains of industry and finance ... are the chief makers of socialism. — Louis D. Brandeis

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. — Louis D. Brandeis

Repression breeds hate; hate menaces stable government. — Louis D. Brandeis

A man is a better citizen of the United States for being also a loyal citizen of his state and of his city; for being loyal to his family and to his profession or trade; for being loyal to his college or his lodge. — Louis D. Brandeis

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.
[Olmstead v. U.S., 277 U.S. 438 (1928) (dissenting)] — Louis D. Brandeis

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

Ownership has been separated from control; and this separation has removed many of the checks which formerly operated to curb the misuse of wealth and power. — Louis D. Brandeis

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. — Louis D. Brandeis

There is no great writing, only great rewriting. — Louis D. Brandeis

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

The US States are our laboratories of democracy. — Louis D. Brandeis

I think all of our human Experience shows that no one with absolute power can be trusted to give it up even in part — Louis D. Brandeis

Democracy is moral before it is political. — Louis D. Brandeis

I abhor averages. I like the individual case. A man may have six meals one day and none the next, making an average of three meals per day, but that is not a good way to live. — Louis D. Brandeis

The best of wages will not compensate for excessively long working hours which undermine heath. — Louis D. Brandeis

Democracy rests upon two pillars: one, the principle that all men are equally entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; and the other, the conviction that such equal opportunity will most advance civilization. — Louis D. Brandeis

What are the American ideals? They are the development of the individual for his own and the common good; the development of the individual through liberty; and the attainment of the common good through democracy and social justice. — Louis D. Brandeis

Behind every argument is someone's ignorance. — Louis D. Brandeis

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

Men long for an afterlife in which there apparently is nothing to do but delight in heaven's wonders. — Louis D. Brandeis

In the frank expression of conflicting opinions lies the greatest promise of wisdom in governmental action. — Louis D. Brandeis

The difference between a nation and a nationality is clear, but it is not always observed. Likeness between members is the essence of nationality, but the members of a nation may be very different. A nation may be composed of many nationalities, as some of the most successful nations are. — Louis D. Brandeis

America has believed that in differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress. It acted on this belief; it has advanced human happiness, and it has prospered. — Louis D. Brandeis

History is not life, but since only life makes history, the union of the two is obvious. — Louis D. Brandeis

The right most valued by all civilized men is the right to be left alone. — Louis D. Brandeis

Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants. — Louis D. Brandeis

The Jews are a Distinct Nationality regardless of where they live, their station in life or their shades of belief, and his clarion call to all the Jews in the world to 'organize, organize, organize,' until every Jew in America must stand up and be counted - counted with us - or prove himself, wittingly or unwittingly, of the few who are against their own people. — Louis D. Brandeis

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

The most important political office is that of private citizen. — Louis D. Brandeis

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 an opportunity for full discussion. Only an emergency can justify repression. — Louis D. Brandeis

In business, the earning of profit is something more than an incident of success. It is an essential condition of success. It is an essential condition of success because the continued absence of profit itself spells failure. — Louis D. Brandeis

Organisation can never be a substitute for initiative and for judgement. — Louis D. Brandeis

If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
— Louis D. Brandeis

Crime is contagious ... if the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law. — Louis D. Brandeis

The general rule of law is, that the noblest of human productions -- knowledge, truths ascertained, conceptions, and ideas -- become, after voluntary communication to others, free as the air to common use."
~Louis D. Brandeis — Louis D. Brandeis

Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty. — Louis D. Brandeis

Those who won our independence ... valued liberty as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. — Louis D. Brandeis

If you would venture, let your mind be bold ... not reckless but bold. — Louis D. Brandeis

We are not won by arguments that we can analyze, but by tone and temper; by the manner, which is the man himself. — Louis D. Brandeis

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

We learned long ago that liberty could be preserved only by limiting in some way the freedom of action of individuals; that otherwise liberty would necessarily yield to absolutism; and in the same way we have learned that unless there be regulation of competition, its excesses will lead to the destruction of competition, and monopoly will take its place. — Louis D. Brandeis

I rise early because no day is long enough for a day's work. — Louis D. Brandeis

There is no good writing; there is only good rewriting. — Louis D. Brandeis

The logic of words should yield to the logic of realities. — Louis D. Brandeis

Nearly all legislation involves a weighing of public needs as against private desires; and likewise a weighing of relative social values. — Louis D. Brandeis

Men feared witches and burned women. — Louis D. Brandeis

It is not wealth, it is not station, it is not social standing and ambition which can make us worthy of the Jewish name, of the Jewish heritage. To be worthy of them, we must live up to and with them. We must regard ourselves their custodians. — Louis D. Brandeis

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

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

The constitutional right of free speech has been declared to be the same in peace and war. In peace, too, men may differ widely as to what loyalty to our country demands, and an intolerant majority, swayed by passion or by fear, may be prone in the future, as it has been in the past, to stamp as disloyal opinions with which it disagrees. — Louis D. Brandeis

The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people. — Louis D. Brandeis

When those of Jewish blood exhibit moral or intellectual superiority, genius or special talent, we feel pride in them, even if they have abjured the faith like Spinoza, Marx, Disraeli or Heine. Despite the meditations of pundits or the decrees of council, our own instincts and acts, and those of others, have defined for us the term 'Jew.' — Louis D. Brandeis

However great his outward conformity, the immigrant is not Americanized unless his interests and affections have become deeply rooted here. And we properly demand of the immigrant even more than this. He must be brought into complete harmony with our ideals and aspirations and cooperate with us for their attainment. — Louis D. Brandeis

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. — Louis D. Brandeis

The world presents enough problems if you believe it to be a world of law and order; do not add to them by believing it to be a world of miracles. — Louis D. Brandeis

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

Sunshine is the greatest disinfectant — Louis D. Brandeis

The most important office ... that of private citizen. — Louis D. Brandeis

Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. — Louis D. Brandeis

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.
[Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)] — Louis D. Brandeis

If you will just start with the idea that this is a hard world, it will all be much simpler. — Louis D. Brandeis

There is no such thing as an innocent purchaser of stocks. — Louis D. Brandeis

I live in Alexandria, Virginia. Near the Supreme Court chambers is a toll bridge across the Potomac. When in a rush, I pay the dollar toll and get home early. However, I usually drive outside the downtown section of the city and cross the Potomac on a free bridge. This bridge was placed outside the downtown Washington, DC area to serve a useful social service, getting drivers to drive the extra mile and help alleviate congestion during the rush hour. If I went over the toll bridge and through the barrier without paying the toll, I would be committing tax evasion ... If, however, I drive the extra mile and drive outside the city of Washington to the free bridge, I am using a legitimate, logical and suitable method of tax avoidance, and am performing a useful social service by doing so. For my tax evasion, I should be punished. For my tax avoidance, I should be commended. The tragedy of life today is that so few people know that the free bridge even exists. — Louis D. Brandeis

People fear witches, and burn women. — Louis D. Brandeis

Ways may someday be developed by which the government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home. — Louis D. Brandeis

What is Americanization? It manifests itself, in a superficial way, when the immigrant adopts the clothes, the manners and the customs generally prevailing here. Far more important is the manifestation presented when he substitutes for his mother tongue the English language as the common medium of speech. — Louis D. Brandeis

We gain nothing by trading the tyranny of capital for the tyranny of labor. — Louis D. Brandeis

Sunshine is the best disinfectant — Louis D. Brandeis

Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. — Louis D. Brandeis

In a democracy, the most important office is the office of citizen — Louis D. Brandeis

Let no American imagine that Zionism is inconsistent with patriotism. Multiple loyalties are objectionable only if they are inconsistent. — Louis D. Brandeis

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 conviction of a private criminal would bring terrible retribution. — Louis D. Brandeis

Anyone who critically analyzes a business learns this: that the success or failure of an enterprise depends usually upon one man. — Louis D. Brandeis

There are better mothers than disaster. A native land is the best of all mothers. We American Jews have a native land we love. But it is even better to have a native land who loves us. — Louis D. Brandeis