Louis D. Brandeis Quotes

The most important political office is that of private citizen.

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.

What I have desired to do is to make the people of Boston realize that the most important office, and the one which all of us can and should fill, is that of private citizen. The duties of the office of private citizen cannot under a republican form of government be neglected without serious injury to the public.

In every such case, the individual is entitled to decide that which is his... shall be given to the public.

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

Wir können in diesem Land entweder eine Demokratie haben oder wir können großen Wohlstand haben, der in den Händen weniger konzentriert liegt, aber wir können nicht beides haben.

But sporadic evidence indicates how great are the possibilities of accumulation when one has the use of “other people’s money.

THERE ARE NO SHORTCUTS IN EVOLUTION

If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.

They became the directing power in the life insurance companies, and other corporate reservoirs of the people’s savings-the buyers of bonds and stocks. They became the directing power also in banks and trust companies-the depositaries of the quick capital of the country-the life blood of business, with which they and others carried on their operations. Thus four distinct functions, each essential to business, and each exercised, originally, by a distinct set of men, became united in the investment banker. It is to this union of business functions that the existence of the Money Trust is mainly due.[1]

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.

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

"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)]

We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.

Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.