Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purpose is 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

About Louis D. Brandeis

Portrait of Louis D. Brandeis

Louis Dembitz Brandeis ( BRAN-dice; November 13, 1856 – October 5, 1941) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1916 to 1939. Brandeis was a leading figure in the antitrust movement at the turn of the 20th century, particularly...

More quotations from 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

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

—Louis D. Brandeis

If you go in for argument, take care of your temper. Your logic, if you have any, will take care of itself.

—Louis D. Brandeis

There are no shortcuts in evolution.

—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 cannot have both.

—Louis D. Brandeis

democracy equality inequality USA wealth

History

23 Nov 2014 Added
14 Jul 2015 Edited (details weren’t recorded yet)