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Quotes by Judge
"It is right to be contented with what we have, never with what we are."
40
"It's not that there are no masters, but that there are many. And the job of the solicitor general is to balance those masters and to accommodate them all, each in their proper places, wisely and well and in so doing to represent the people of the United States."
40
"More students have a better knowledge of pop culture than of the Constitution."
40
"Prophecy, however honest, is generally a poor substitute for experience."
40
"I think it shows that if you have one group of people doing it, you'll get another group of people doing it."
40
"The proof that God has revealed himself to man by special and express communications, and that Christianity constitutes that revelation, is no part of these inquiries."
40
"I've led a school whose faculty and students examine and discuss and debate every aspect of our law and legal system. And what I've learned most is that no one has a monopoly on truth or wisdom. I've learned that we make progress by listening to each other, across every apparent political or ideological divide."
40
"Trouble is, kids feel they have to shock their elders and each generation grows up into something harder to shock."
40
"Oh, I don't think Tom Sowell would tell anybody to join the administration. That's not his style. But I think his attitude has always been if it had to be done he'd prefer me to do it than somebody else."
40
"The Supreme Court, of course, has the responsibility of ensuring that our government never oversteps its proper bounds or violates the rights of individuals. But the Court must also recognize the limits on itself and respect the choices made by the American people."
39
"Perhaps you should say there should be mandatory retirement even of members of the court, members of the federal judiciary. I'm sure there can be questions about whether one does as good work when you get into your - you know, I'm 67."
39
"Men do not die from overwork. They die from dissipation and worry."
39
"To declare that in the administration of criminal law the end justifies the means to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure conviction of a private criminal would bring terrible retribution."
39
"With my academic achievement in high school I was accepted rather readily at Princeton and equally as fast at Yale, but my test scores were not comparable to that of my classmates. And that's been shown by statistics, there are reasons for that - there are cultural biases built into testing, and that was one of the motivations for the concept of affirmative action to try to balance out those effects."
39
"At least there's a political input, but when you put on the robe, at that point the politics is over."
39
"I think Juan stopped short - he got halfway to the destination and got off the train. He is certainly an excellent writer and a good person, but I'm not a nationalist."
39
"The nature of the Catilinarian conspiracy was bad and bloody."
39
"It is not unprofessional to give free legal advice, but advertising that the first visit will be free is a bit like a fox telling chickens he will not bite them until they cross the threshold of the hen house."
38
"We had to go on and do the work of the court and we did."
38
"How it came to pass that man, originally taught, as we doubt not he was, to know and to worship the true Jehovah, is found, at so early a period of his history, a worshiper of baser objects, it is foreign to our present purpose to inquire."
38
"You can have many different selection systems, but the bottom line has to be a system that, once the judge takes office that judge will feel that he or she is to decide the case without reference to the popular thing or the popular will of the moment."
38
"Every citizen has to figure out what kind of government he or she wants."
38
"Under the CARE bill, personnel performing radiologic procedures in every state would be required to meet minimum educational and credentialing standards. Each state would then be responsible for regulating radiologic technologists according to those standards."
37
"We need to in this country begin again to raise civil discourse to another level. I mean, we shout and scream and yell and get very little accomplished, but you can disagree very much with the next guy and still be friends and acquaintances."
37
"When Shakespeare begins his exposition thus he generally at first makes people talk about the hero, but keeps the hero himself for some time out of sight, so that we await his entrance with curiosity, and sometimes with anxiety."
37
"I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures."
37
"In the ordinary affairs of life we do not require nor expect demonstrative evidence, because it is inconsistent with the nature of matters of fact, and to insist on its production would be unreasonable and absurd."
37
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