Brandeis Law librarian publishes compilation of Louis D. Brandeis quotations

As the manager of the collection of papers that Justice Louis D. Brandeis donated to the Brandeis School of Law, Scott Campbell is accustomed to getting calls from reporters and researchers asking him to verify a quote attributed to the Supreme Court justice.

In a newly published book, Campbell shares his encyclopedic knowledge of Brandeis' writings and speeches.

The Quotable Brandeis is forthcoming in November 2017 from Carolina Academic Press.

"I'm sure that I missed some quotes that people love, and I'm sure that I've included some quotes that people will wonder why I selected," he says.

Regardless, the book includes more than 500 quotations. It's organized by category and includes an index and sources for the quotes.

Campbell says the most common question he is asked is about the origin of the quote "You can have democracy or you can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but you cannot have both." When Ralph Nader was running for president, he used that quote several times and attributed it to Brandeis.

After being asked to verify that quote several times, Campbell resolved to read the entirety of the law school's Brandeis collection — thousands of letters, speeches, legal documents and more from 1870-1941.

While he was never able to find that quote in Brandeis' writings, he believes it came from a conversation. And all his reading of Brandeis' words left him inspired.

"It's really amazing how relevant he is after all these years," Campbell says, adding that Brandeis' ideas about the unequal distribution of wealth were seen in the 2016 presidential election.