"Inanimate objects are sometimes parties in litigation. A ship has a legal personality, a fiction found useful for maritime purposes. The corporation sole – a creature of ecclesiastical law – is an acceptable adversary and large fortunes ride on its cases....So it should be as respects valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches, ridges, groves of trees, swampland, or even air that feels the destructive pressures of modern technology and modern life. The river, for example, is the living symbol of all the life it sustains or nourishes – fish, aquatic insects, water ouzels, otter, fisher, deer, elk, bear, and all other animals, including man, who are dependent on it or who enjoy it for its sight, its sound, or its life. The river as plaintiff speaks for the ecological unit of life that is part of it.""
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Justices of the Supreme Court of the United StatesJudges from the United StatesLawyers from New York (state)Environmentalists from the United StatesPresbyterians from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Dissenting, Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727 (1972).
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_O._Douglas
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
William O. Douglas
William Orville Douglas (16 October 1898 – 19 January 1980) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. With a term lasting 36 years and 209 days, he is the longest-serving justice in the history of the Supreme Court.
75 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by William O. Douglas →
Related Quotes
"Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those…"
"The liberties of none are safe unless the liberties of all are protected."
"We have here the problem of bigness. Its lesson should by now have been burned into our memory by Brandeis. The Curse…"
"Christianity has sufficient inner strength to survive and flourish on its own. It does not need state subsidies, nor …"
"The whole, though larger than any of its parts, does not necessarily obscure their separate identities."
"Religious experiences which are as real as life to some may be incomprehensible to others."
"The way to combat noxious ideas is with other ideas. The way to combat falsehoods is with truth."
"The critical question of "standing" would be simplified and also put neatly in focus if we fashioned a federal rule t…"
"I've often thought that if our zoning boards could be put in charge of botanists, of zoologists and geologists, and p…"
"The right to dissent is the only thing that makes life tolerable for a judge of an appellate court... the affairs of …"