Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
There is a constant tension between individual expression and systems that demand obedience and conformity.
In plain terms
People want to speak freely, but powerful groups often try to stop them.
What can you take from it?
Protect your right to express yourself against pressure to conform.

Where it applies

  • free speech debates
  • workplace culture
  • protest

Putting it to work

  • speak openly
  • challenge norms
  • defend dissent

Questions to consider

  • Where does conformity end and suppression begin?
  • How do you express yourself?

Another view

Some conformity is necessary for social cohesion and safety.

More from William O. Douglas

  1. The Court's great power is its ability to educate, to provide moral leadership.

    Permalink to quote #21
  2. For there is no constitutional right for any race to be preferred... If discrimination based on race is constitutionally permissible when those who hold the re…

    Permalink to quote #23
  3. The first opinion the Court ever filed has a dissenting opinion. Dissent is a tradition of this Court... When someone is writing for the Court, he hopes to get…

    Permalink to quote #20

Related quotes

  1. It is our attitude toward free thought and free expression that will determine our fate. There must be no limit on the range of temperate discussion, no limits…

    William O. DouglasWilliam O. Douglas quote #31
  2. At the heart of that Western freedom and democracy is the belief that the individual man, the child of God, is the touchstone of value, and all society, all gr…

    Robert F. KennedyRobert F. Kennedy quote #5
  3. It is the rare fortune of these days that one may think what one likes and say what one thinks.

    TacitusTacitus quote #7