88+ Louis D. Brandeis Quotes On Education, Religion And Justice

Louis D. Brandeis was an American lawyer and associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939. He was the first Jewish justice and is widely considered to be one of the most influential Supreme Court justices in American history. Brandeis is known for his support of the concept of privacy, as well as his progressive views on economic regulation and constitutional law. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Louis D. Brandeis on education, leadership, life.

Top 10 Louis D. Brandeis Quotes

1. 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.
2. Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.
3. 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.
4. The only title in our democracy superior to that of President is the title of citizen.
5. 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.
6. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.
7. 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.
8. The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.
9. If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
10. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.

Louis D. Brandeis Image Quotes

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

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

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

Louis D. Brandeis Short Quotes

• Neutrality is at times a graver sin than belligerence.
• There are no shortcuts in evolution.
• Behind every argument is someone's ignorance.
• The best of wages will not compensate for excessively long working hours which undermine heath.
• Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly.
• There is no good writing; there is only good rewriting.
• In differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress.
• Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases.
• Repression breeds hate; hate menaces stable government.
• Organization can never be a substitute for initiative and for judgment.

Louis D. Brandeis Quotes About Life

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

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

Louis D. Brandeis Quotes About Justice

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

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

Louis D. Brandeis Quotes About Liberty

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Louis D. Brandeis Quotes About Private

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

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. — Louis D. Brandeis

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

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

Louis D. Brandeis Famous Quotes And Sayings

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

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

Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants. — 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

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

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

I used to oppose women's suffrage and I've come to support it because these women have convinced me that we need full gender equality for full democratic participation. — 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

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

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

Strong, responsible unions are essential to industrial fair play. Without them the labor bargain is wholly one-sided. — Louis D. Brandeis

The right to be alone -- the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized man. — 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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

Sunshine is the greatest disinfectant — 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 most important thing we do is not doing. — Louis D. Brandeis

Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. — Louis D. Brandeis

In a democracy, the most important office is the office of citizen — 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

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

Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the state was to make men free to develop their faculties... They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty... that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government. — 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. — Louis D. Brandeis

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

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. — Louis D. Brandeis

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

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

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

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

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

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

The US States are our laboratories of democracy. — 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

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

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

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

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

There is a spark of idealism within every individual which can be fanned into flame and bring forth extraordinary results. — 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

Sunshine is the best disinfectant — 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

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

Life Lessons by Louis D. Brandeis

1. Louis D. Brandeis taught the importance of hard work and dedication, as he rose from a humble background to become a Supreme Court Justice.
2. He also demonstrated the power of using one's voice to speak out for justice and the importance of standing up for what is right.
3. Finally, Brandeis was a champion of the people, advocating for the protection of privacy and the right of individuals to control their own information.