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Quotes by Judge


"The members of the court were just delighted to have a ninth member - male or female. They were all kind and welcoming."

"Crabbed and obscure definitions are of no use beyond a narrow circle of students, of whom probably every one has a pet one of his own."

"Most of the things we do, we do for no better reason than that our fathers have done them or our neighbors do them, and the same is true of a larger part than what we suspect of what we think."

"Where the suspect poses no immediate threat to the officer and no threat to others, the harm resulting from the failing to apprehend him does not justify the use of deadly force to do so."


"I would not like to be the only woman on the court."


"I'm a judge. It seemed to me that it was critical to try to take action to stem the criticism and help people understand that in the constitutional framework, it's terribly important not to have a system of retaliation against decisions people don't like."

"Beware how you take away hope from any human being."

"Method is much, technique is much, but inspiration is even more."

"I think people need to commit to one another before they commit to bringing children into the world because that's the optimum arrangement for children, not to take anything at all away from women who have to rear their children by themselves."

"Each generation must recreate liberty for its own times."

"In less than eighteen months, it prepared a first draft which it submitted to the General Assembly and which, at the end of one hundred sessions of elevated, often impassioned discussion, was adopted in the form of thirty articles on December 10, 1948."

"A child's education should begin at least one hundred years before he is born."

"Dissents are appeals to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of another day."

"You could have 50 different states having 50 different regulations... until they were all litigated out."

"The real difference between the United States and other nations lies not in the words of the preamble to the Constitution, but in the fact that the substantive clauses of that Constitution are enforced by individuals independent of and not beholden to the elected branches."

"I feel that the greatest reward for doing is the opportunity to do more."

"The attorney general would call at 5 o'clock in the evening and say: 'Tomorrow morning we are going to try to integrate the University of Mississippi. Get us a memo on what we're likely to do, and what we can do if the governor sends the National Guard there.'"

"If you deny that any principles of conduct at all are common to and admitted by all men who try to behave reasonably - well, I don't see how you can have any ethics or any ethical background for law."


"We pay a price when we deprive children of the exposure to the values, principles, and education they need to make them good citizens."

"Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done."

"The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved."

"When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free."

"Neutrality is at times a graver sin than belligerence."

"Defendants are being evaluated based on numerical grid without any aggravating circumstances being considered. The effect has been to transfer the disparity from the judge to the prosecutor allowing for a great deal of leeway on indictments."

"Shakespeare's idea of the tragic fact is larger than this idea and goes beyond it; but it includes it, and it is worth while to observe the identity of the two in a certain point which is often ignored."


"Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging."
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