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photo Harris and Ewing Collection
“Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto itself; it invites anarchy.”
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-Louis Brandeis, a social justice attorney dubbed as the “People’s Lawyer,” and who served as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1916 – 1939
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Watch a 2021 performance of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra Septet with Wynton Marsalis play Marsalis’s composition “Be Present” from his album The Democracy! Suite.
Marsalis wrote it, according to his website, because “jazz music is the perfect metaphor for democracy,” and that “the joy and beauty of jazz can bring us all closer together.” This song “recognizes the efforts of everyone who has chosen to enter the fray to fight for human freedoms, wherever and however they choose…The music of The Democracy! Suite may be instrumental, but it speaks for itself, urging us onto action—to get out of our seats and fight for the world we believe in.”
While written over four years ago, those words remain evergreen (as do Justice Brandeis’s)
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Click for:
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Other editions of Memorable Quotes
A 2003 interview with Rosa Parks biographer Douglas Brinkley
More poetry on Jerry Jazz Musician
“Saharan Blues on the Seine,” Aishatu Ado’s winning story in the 68th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest
More short fiction on Jerry Jazz Musician
Information about how to submit your poetry or short fiction
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Jerry Jazz Musician…human produced since 1999
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