Louis D. Brandeis Quotes

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Louis D. Brandeis

Profession : Judge

Birth : November 13, 1856

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

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

In the frank expression of conflicting opinions lies the greatest promise of wisdom in governmental action.

Louis D. Brandeis

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

Louis D. Brandeis

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.

Louis D. Brandeis

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

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

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

Louis D. Brandeis

The most important political office is that of the private citizen.

Louis D. Brandeis

Organisation can never be a substitute for initiative and for judgement.

Louis D. Brandeis

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.

Louis D. Brandeis

The logic of words should yield to the logic of realities.

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

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

Louis D. Brandeis

Neutrality is at times a graver sin than belligerence.

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

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

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

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

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