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America
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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
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Anarchy
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If the government becomes a law breaker, 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 retribution.
From dissenting opinion in Olmstead vs. United States, in which the court upheld the use of wiretaps in a case involving an investigation of bootlegging. Brandeis strongly defended the individual right to privacy from government intrusion.
-Louis D. Brandeis, 1928
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Argument & Debate
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Behind every argument is someone's ignorance.
-Louis D. Brandeis
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Determination
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Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.
-Louis D. Brandeis
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Experience
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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.
-Louis D. Brandeis
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Government
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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, Other People's Money and How the Bankers Use It (What Publicity Can Do, Ch 5, p. 92) (Frederick A. Stokes Co. ed.)
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Heaven
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Men long for an afterlife in which there apparently is nothing to do but delight in heaven's wonders.
-Louis D. Brandeis
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Judging, Judgment
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Organization can never be a substitute for initiative and for judgment.
-Louis D. Brandeis
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Liberty
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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.
-Louis D. Brandeis, Olmstead vs. United States, 1928
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Life
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If you will just start with the idea that this is a hard world,it will all be much simpler.
-Louis D. Brandeis
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Politics
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The most important political office is that of private citizen.
-Louis D. Brandeis
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Solitude
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The right to be alone -- the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized man.
-Louis D. Brandeis
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Books by and about Louis D. Brandeis