Ginsburg Quotes & Sayings

Arizona presents no specific reason for excepting capital defendants from the constitutional protections extended to defendants generally, and none is readily apparent. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in 2012. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Promoting active liberty does not mean allowing the majority to run roughshod over minorities. It calls for taking special care that all groups have a chance to fully participate in society and the political process. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Prisons should be co-ed because separate quarters are discriminatory. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I said on the equality side of it, that it is essential to a woman's equality with man that she be the decision-maker, that her choice be controlling. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I think our system is being polluted by money, — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

History has shown that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg did, in fact, dramatically change the balance of the court in many critical areas, such as abortion, the privacy debate expansion and child pornography. — Sam Brownback

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the most liberal and illumined of the nine Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. — Donna Leon

[Ginsburg's] feminism was very sweeping and very ambitious and very consistent. Justice O'Connor had a more case-by-case, pragmatic approach to her feminism. They were not entirely the same, [but] I think that they shared the most important thing, which is the belief that they were worthy and that therefore other women were worthy. — Linda Hirshman

I do think that being the second [female Supreme Court Justice] is wonderful, because it is a sign that being a woman in a place of importance is no longer extraordinary. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Generalizations about the "way women are" and estimates of what is appropriate for most women no longer justify denying opportunity to women whose talent and capacity place them outside the average description. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Sunday is the Academy Awards. Every time an actor says, 'I didn't expect this,' Ruth Bader Ginsburg will do a shot. — David Letterman

The written argument endures. The oral argument is fleeting. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Every constitution written since the end of World War II includes a provision that men and women are citizens of equal stature. Ours does not. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that changed their abortion laws before Roe are not going to change back. So we have a policy that only affects poor women, and it can never be otherwise. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

We do not read (the law) to elevate accommodation of religious observances over an institution's need to maintain order and safety, ... We have no cause to believe that (the law) would not be applied in an appropriately balanced way, without sensitivity to security concerns. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

When Ginsburg is at the top of his game you might as well put down your toys and listen. — Charles Bukowski

Whatever community organization, whether it's a women's organization, or fighting for racial justice ... you will get satisfaction out of doing something to give back to the community that you never get in any other way. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

If I had any talent God could give me, I would be a great diva — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I would not look to the United States Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

For weeks, [Sonia] Sotomayor had seen drafts of Ginsburg's opinion as it circulated among the justices. She knew she was about to be a public target. But she would have the courage of her convictions - perhaps stubbornly, misguidedly - yet with confidence enough to be the one in an 8-1 vote. — Joan Biskupic

Racial discrimination in elections in Texas is no mere historical artifact. To the contrary, Texas has been found in violation of the Voting Rights Act in every redistricting cycle from and after 1970. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

They're not a question of additional benefits. I mean, they touch every aspect of life. Your partner is sick. Social Security. I mean, it's pervasive. It's not as though, well, there's this little Federal sphere and it's only a tax question. It's as Justice Kennedy said, 1100 statutes, and it affects every area of life. And so he was really diminishing what the State has said is marriage. You're saying, no, State said two kinds of marriage; the full marriage, and then this sort of skim milk marriage. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

And I give you this picture because it fairly captures our nearly fifty-year happy marriage, during which I have offered up an astonishing number of foolish pronouncements with absolute assurance, and Ruth, with only limited rancor, has ignored almost every one. A — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Dissents speak to a future age. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

If you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it. I had a life partner who thought my work was as important as his, and I think that made all the difference for me. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

So that's the dissenter's hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I guess the language that Justice Ginsburg used at the closing of the VMI (United States v. Virginia Military Institute) case is an important thing; it resonates with me: 'A prime part of the history of our Constitution is the story of the extension of constitutional rights to people once ignored or excluded.' — Ted Olson

There is a Constitutional right to prostitution. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Women will only have true equality when men share with them the responsibility of bringing up the next generation. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The state controlling a woman would mean denying her full autonomy and full equality. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Mr. Starr, have you no shame? Facts and law are always subordinated to the will of the American people. — William H. Ginsburg

How to be Like RBG:
Work for what you believe in, but pick your battles, and don't burn your bridges. Don't be afraid to take charge, think about what you want, then do the work, but then enjoy what makes you happy, bring along your crew, have a sense of humor.
-Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Notorious RBG by
Irin Carmon — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

A constitution, as important as it is, will mean nothing unless the people are yearning for liberty and freedom. — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

One might plausibly contend that Congress violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers when it exonerates itself from the impositions of the laws it obligates people outside the legislature to obey. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

When contemplated in its extreme, almost any power looks dangerous. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Our goal in the '70s was to end the closed door era. There were so many things that were off limits to women, policing, firefighting, mining, piloting planes. And the stereotypical view of people of a world divided between home and child caring women and men as breadwinners, men representing the family outside the home. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The emphasis must be not on the right to abortion but on the right to privacy and reproductive control. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I don't say women's rights - I say the constitutional principle of the equal citizenship stature of men and women. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Justice Ginsburg is a very competent justice, and it is a joy to have her on the court, but particularly for me it is a pleasure to have a second woman on the court. — Sandra Day O'Connor

When I'm sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court] and I say, 'When there are nine,' people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Religious organizations exist to foster the interests of persons subscribing to the same religious faith. Not so of for-profit corporations. Workers who sustain the operations of those corporations commonly are not drawn from one religious community. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Rabbi Alfred Bettleheim once said: "Prejudice saves us a painful trouble, the trouble of thinking. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Feminism ... I think the simplest explanation, and one that captures the idea, is a song that Marlo Thomas sang, 'Free to be You and Me.' Free to be, if you were a girl - doctor, lawyer, Indian chief. Anything you want to be. And if you're a boy, and you like teaching, you like nursing, you would like to have a doll, that's OK too. That notion that we should each be free to develop our own talents, whatever they may be, and not be held back by artificial barriers - manmade barriers, certainly not heaven sent. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

When Ruth Bader Ginsburg came in front of the Senate and was approved 96-3 to be on the Supreme Court to replace conservative justice Byron White. This is in 1993.Now, Justice Ginsburg, it was noted earlier, was a general counsel for the ACLU, certainly a liberal group. It was abundantly clear during the confirmation hearing that Ginsburg would swing the balance of the court to the left.But because President [Bill] Clinton won the election and because Justice Ginsburg clearly had the intellectual ability and integrity to serve on the court, she was confirmed. — Sam Brownback

Anger, resentment, envy, and self-pity are wasteful reactions. They greatly drain one's time. They sap energy better devoted to productive endeavors. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

kids you expect them to put a good effort into everything they do. Explain the reason you demand effort is so they — Kenneth R. Ginsburg

By judging differently and by recognizing their female experiences and bringing them to bear on the Supreme Court's decision, Ginsburg and O'Connor both made it legitimate for people to be different. — Linda Hirshman

When police or prosecutors conceal significant exculpatory or impeaching material, we hold, it is ordinarily incumbent on the state to set the record straight. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The Court ... [recognizes] ... the persistence of racial inequality and a majority's acknowledgement of Congress's authority to act affirmatively, not only to end discrimination, but also to counteract discrimination's lingering effects. Those effects, reflective of a system of racial caste [legal segregation and discrimination] only recently ended, are evident in our work places, markets, and neighborhoods. Job applicants with identical resumes, qualifications, and interview styles still experience different receptions, depending on their race. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

In sum, the Court's conclusion that a constitutionally adequate recount is impractical is a prophecy the Court's own judgment will not allow to be tested. Such an untested prophecy should not decide the Presidency of the United States. I dissent. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

She never envisioned a legal career for me, but she did think it was very important that I be able to support myself, and I think she would be pleased to see what has become of me. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Members of the legislature, people who have run for office, know the connection between money and influence on what laws get passed — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Cushman, who assigned her to research McCarthy's assault on civil liberties, "wanted me to understand two things," Ruth recalls. "One is that we were betraying our most fundamental values, and, two, that legal skills could help make things better, could help to challenge what was going on. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

If she is given full immunity ... in order to verify that she's telling the truth, which I'm sure she is, I would be happy to submit her to a polygraph examination. Lie detector's not a good word because they can't detect lies. — William H. Ginsburg

Sometimes people say unkind or thoughtless things, and when they do, it is best to be a little hard of hearing - to tune out and not snap back in anger or impatience. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

When Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg was before us in 1993, she said that her standard was to give no hints, no forecasts, no previews, and declined to answer dozens of questions. — Orrin Hatch

Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be 'perceived as favoring one religion over another,' the very 'risk the [Constitution's] Establishment Clause was designed to preclude. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

We had to go on and do the work of the court and we did. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

One of the most brilliant Russian writers of the twentieth century, Yevgeny Zamyatin belongs to the tradition in Russian literature represented by Gogol, Leskov, Bely, Remizov, and, in certain aspects of their work, also by Babel and Bulgakov. It is a tradition, paradoxically, of experimenters and innovators. Perhaps the principal quality that unites them is their approach to reality and its uses in art - the refusal to be bound by literal fact, the interweaving of reality and fantasy, the transmutation of fact into poetry, often grotesque, oblique, playful, but always expressive of the writer's unique vision of life in his own, unique terms. — Mirra Ginsburg

Frankly, I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I became a lawyer for selfish reasons. I thought I could do a lawyer's job better than any other. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

We live in an age in which the fundamental principles to which we subscribe - liberty, equality and justice for all - are encountering extraordinary challenges, ... But it is also an age in which we can join hands with others who hold to those principles and face similar challenges. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

You would have a huge statelessness problem if you don't consider a child born abroad a U.S. citizen. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Reading is the key that opens doors to many good things in life. Reading shaped my dreams, and more reading helped me make my dreams come true. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

If we gave up our freedom as the price of security, we would no longer be the great nation that we are. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

It is not women's liberation, it is women's and men's liberation. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The enormous difference between fighting gender discrimination as opposed to race discrimination is good people immediately perceive race discrimination as evil and intolerable. But when I talked about sex-based discrimination, I got the response, 'What are you talking about? Women are treated ever so much better than men! — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I am a judge born, raised, and proud of being a Jew. The demand for justice runs through the entirety of the Jewish tradition. I hope, in my years on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, I will have the strength and the courage to remain constant in the service of that demand. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

All respect for the office of the presidency aside, I assumed that the obvious and unadulterated decline of freedom and constitutional sovereignty, not to mention the efforts to curb the power of judicial review, spoke for itself. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The impact of all these restrictions is on poor women, because women who have means, if their state doesn't provide access, another state does ... It makes no sense as a national policy to promote birth only among poor people. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I do hope that some of my dissents will one day be the law. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The age of consent for sex should be 12 years old. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Who will take responsibility for raising the next generation? — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I voted for Justice Breyer and Justice Ginsburg. Not because I agreed with their ideology, but because I thought they were qualified and that elections have consequences when presidents are nominated. — John McCain

I would not like to be the only woman on the court. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

It is not like I have gone crazy, I just don't want to take any chances. You never know what could happen. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg fell asleep during Obama's speech. She woke up with the other justices drawing a gavel on her face. — Conan O'Brien

Tim Tebow has been on the bench longer than Ruth Bader Ginsburg. — David Letterman

Only the Democratic Party could produce a string of presidential candidates who oppose school choice and vouchers while sending their own children to lily-white private schools. Only the Democratic Party could hysterically denounce a Supreme Court nominee for allegedly making unwanted sexual advances in the workplace and then applaud a president who was receiving oral sex from a White House intern while discussing deploying American troops with a congressman on the phone. Indeed, only the Democrats could oppose Clarence Thomas, actually block Supreme Court nominee Douglas Ginsburg (for marijuana use), and then run Bill Clinton for president. — Ann Coulter

Neither federal nor state government acts compatibly with equal protection when a law or official policy denies to women, simply because they are women, full citizenship stature - equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in and contribute to society based on their individual talents and capacities. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I have yet to see a death case among the dozen coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial ... People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

My rule was I will not answer a question that attempts to project how I will rule in a case that might come before the court. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

We children of public school age can do much to aid in the promotion of peace. We must try to train ourselves and those about us to live together with one another as good neighbors for this idea is embodied in the great new Charter of the United Nations. It is the only way to secure the world against future wars and maintain an everlasting peace. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

We should learn ... to do our best for the sake of our communities and for the sake of those for whom we pave the way. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

You can't have it all, all at once. Who - man or woman - has it all, all at once? Over my lifespan I think I have had it all. But in different periods of time things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

If there was one decision I would overrule, it would be Citizens United. I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

My mother told me two things constantly. One was to be a lady and the other was to be independent, and the law was something most unusual for those times because for most girls growing up in the '40s, the most important degree was not your B.A. but your M.R.S. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I owe a debt of gratitude to two other living Justices. Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg paved the way for me and so many other women in my generation. Their pioneering lives have created boundless possibilities for women in the law. I thank them for their inspiration and also for the personal kindnesses they have shown me. — Elena Kagan

Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

If I resign any time this year, he [President Obama] could not successfully appoint anyone I would like to see in the court ... [A]nybody who thinks that if I step down, Obama could appoint someone like me, they're misguided. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Women's rights are an essential part of the overall human rights agenda, trained on the equal dignity and ability to live in freedom all people should enjoy. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

According to Ruth, Nabokov changed the way she read and wrote: "He used words to paint pictures. Even today, when I read, I notice with pleasure when an author has chosen a particular word, a particular place, for the picture it will convey to the reader." Ruth remembers — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

He United States is subject to the scrutiny of a candid world ... what the United States does, for good or for ill, continues to be watched by the international community, in particular by organizations concerned with the advancement of the rule of law and respect for human dignity. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg