Louis Brandeis (1856 – 1941)
Important American litigator, Supreme Court Justice, advocate of privacy, and developer of the Brandeis Brief.
If we would guide by the light of reason, we must let our minds be bold.
Full and free exercise of this right by the citizen is ordinarily also his duty; for its exercise is more important to the nation than it is to himself. Like the course of the heavenly bodies, harmony in national life is a resultant of the struggle between contending forces. In frank expression of conflicting opinion lies the greatest promise of wisdom in governmental action; and in suppression lies ordinarily the greatest peril.
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.
The bow must be strung and unstrung . . . there must be time also for the unconscious thinking which comes to the busy man in his play.
Behind every argument is someone's ignorance.
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. To courageous, self-reliant men, with confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning applied through the processes of popular government, 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.
With deepest veneration and fellow feeling, I clasp your hand on the occasion of your eightieth birthday. I know of no other person who combines such profound intellectual gifts with such self-renunciation while finding the whole meaning of his life in quiet service to the community. We -- all of us -- thank you not only for what you have accomplished and brought about, but also because we feel happy that such a man should exist at all in this time of ours, which is so lacking in genuine personalities.
With reverent greetings....
We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.
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. . . . For only through the ennobling effect of its strivings can we develop the best that is in us and give to this country the full benefit of our great inheritance.
Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression 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.
[T]hat which is man-made can be unmade.
[N]o law, written or unwritten, can be understood without a full knowledge of the facts out of which it arises, and to which it is to be applied.
[N]o people ever did or ever can attain a worthy civilization by the satisfaction merely of material needs . . .
There is in most Americans some spark of idealism, which can be fanned into a flame. It takes sometimes a divining rod to find what it is; but when found, and that means often, when disclosed to the owners, the results are often extraordinary.
There must be opportunities for judgment to mature. When, therefore, you increase your business to a very great extent, and the multitude of problems increase with its growth, you will find, in the first place, that the man at the head has a diminishing knowledge of the facts and, in the second place, a diminishing opportunity of exercising a careful judgment upon them.
In the field of modern business, so rich in opportunity for the exercise of man's finest and most varied mental faculties and moral qualities, mere money-making cannot be regarded as the legitimate end. Neither can mere growth of bulk or power be admitted as a worthy ambition. Nor can a man nobly mindful of his serious responsibilities to society view business as a game; since with the conduct of business human happiness or misery is inextricably interwoven.
There is nothing cold or detached or aloof about the private Brandeis, but it is perfectly in keeping with his views of privacy that while he was alive he kept . . . his life and personality hidden from public view.
[O]nly through participation by the many in the responsibilities and determinations of business can Americans secure the moral and intellectual development which is essential to the maintenance of liberty.
Stare decisis is usually the wise policy, because in most matters it is more important that the applicable rule of law be settled than that it be settled right... This is commonly true even where the error is a matter of serious concern, provided correction can be had by legislation. But in cases involving the Federal Constitution, where correction through legislative action is practically impossible, this court has often overruled its earlier decisions. The court bows to the lessons of experience and the force of better reasoning, recognizing that the process of trial and error, so fruitful in the physical sciences, is appropriate also in the judicial function.
True human progress is based less on the inventive mind than on the conscience of men such as Brandeis.