top of page
.png){kind=small}
"When I went to law school, which after all was back in the dark ages, we never looked beyond our borders for precedents. As a state court judge, it never would have occurred to me to do so, and when I got to the Supreme Court, it was very much the same. We just didn't do it."
Standard
Customized
Exlpore more Court quotes
"Just because you're convicted in a court room doesn't mean you're guilty of something."
"If you could say of any one individual that the court as an institution is the length and shadow of that individual, surely it would be John Marshall."
"He has selected from a group of overwhelming candidates. This candidate was nominated to the Supreme Court because of his extremely overwhelming qualifications."
"I could see flames from the windows of my chambers. For the next three or four days we had major rioting here in Washington and I stayed at the court day and night."
"What I wanted was for everyone listening to understand that these things mattered - not necessarily for me, but in this particular forum they mattered in terms of whether of not we were getting a person who should sit on the Supreme Court."
"If in any divination the Tenth Card should be a Court Card, it shews that the subject of the divination falls ultimately into the hands of a person represented by that card, and its end depends mainly on him."
"The court of last resort is no longer the Supreme Court. It's "Nightline.""
"I don't play full court anymore. I just play half-court."
Explore more quotes by Sandra Day O'Connor
"We don't accomplish anything in this world alone... and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one's life and all the weavings of individual threads form one to another that creates something."
"The abortion cases produced an enormous amount of mail to my chambers, vastly more than to the other chambers, I am sure. I sometimes thought there wasn't a woman in the United States who didn't write me a letter on one side or the other of that issue."
"It matters enormously to a successful democratic society like ours that we have three branches of government, each with some independence and some control over the other two. That's set out in the Constitution."
"Historically courts in this country have been insulated. We do not look beyond our borders for precedents."
"It is a measure of the framers' fear that a passing majority might find it expedient to compromise 4th Amendment values that these values were embodied in the Constitution itself."
"The Establishment Clause prohibits government from making adherence to a religion relevant in any way to a person's standing in the political community."
"My hope is that 10 years from now, after I've been across the street at work for a while, they'll all be glad they gave me that wonderful vote."
"Young women today often have very little appreciation for the real battles that took place to get women where they are today in this country. I don't know how much history young women today know about those battles."
"Having family responsibilities and concerns just has to make you a more understanding person."
"Despite the encouraging and wonderful gains and the changes for women which have occurred in my lifetime, there is still room to advance and to promote correction of the remaining deficiencies and imbalances."
bottom of page