Justices Quotes & Sayings

We often imagine that the court serves as a sort of neutral umpire controlling the warring political branches. But this is mostly myth. The justices of the Supreme Court are themselves actors in the struggle for power, and when they intervene, they think carefully about how their decisions will affect the court's own legitimacy and authority. — Noah Feldman

I think he's [Louis Brandeis] a great model for progressive justices today who want to answer the originalists. It's not that the original paradigm cases are irrelevant, but you have to focus on the values the framers were trying to protect, not on the means with which those values were invaded in the 18th century. — Jeffrey Rosen

Justices look solemn in their formal black robes, but every so often they like to have a little fun by taking on a strange case, or overturning a presidential election, that sort of thing. — Christopher Buckley

Many voters think about the makeup of the Supreme Court when they are choosing a president. The justices deal not only with constitutional issues but also with social issues that were unknown to the founding fathers who wrote the Constitution more than 200 years ago. — Helen Thomas

If we think there is an undermining now, just wait if Sharia is adopted or utilized by justices in the United States. — Donald Trump

There is another legal sense of the word "copyright" much emphasized by several English justices. — Richard Rogers Bowker

Activist Supreme Courts are not new. The Dred Scott decision in 1856, imposing slavery in free territories; the Plessy decision in 1896, imposing segregation on a private railroad company; the Korematsu decision in 1944, upholding Franklin Roosevelt's internment of American citizens, mostly Japanese Americans; and the Roe decision in 1973, imposing abortion on the entire nation; are examples of the consequences of activist Courts and justices. — Mark Levin

Over the past few years, the Supreme Court was six times more likely to accept cases from an elite group of 66 lawyers than it was from more than 99 percent of those who petitioned the court. That's the finding of a recent Reuters special report called "The Echo Chamber." It illustrates how almost half the appeals accepted by the court over a nine-year period came from this cadre of elite lawyers
many of whom have personal connections to the nine justices. — Dahlia Lithwick

You know, it shows how old I am. I can remember the good old days when the president picked the Supreme Court justices instead of the other way around. — Jay Leno

Thomas Cromwell is now about fifty years old. He has a labourer's body, stocky, useful, running to fat. He has black hair, greying now, and because of his impermeable skin, which seems designed to resist rain as well as sun, people sneer that his father was an Irishman, though really he was a brewer and a blacksmith at Putney, a shearsman too, a man with a finger in every pie, a scrapper and a brawler, a drunk and a bully, a man often hauled before the justices for punching someone, for cheating someone. How the son of such a man has achieved his present eminence is a question all Europe asks. — Hilary Mantel

That, in part, is why the Constitution's framers gave justices life tenure ? to enable them to rule wherever the law and the Constitution led them, without obligation or fear of political reprisal. Former Republican president Gerald Ford recently paid tribute to John Paul Stevens, his only appointee to the Supreme Court, who is also far more liberal than Republicans expected. He has served his nation well, ... with dignity, intellect and without partisan political concerns. — Gerald R. Ford

Roosevelt got a chance to name an amazing nine justices of the Supreme Court. He was not namby-pamby on this question. He wanted people who shared his views, he wanted liberals, and he wanted lots of them. — Noah Feldman

But I am pro-life and will intend, if I'm president of the United States, to encourage pro-life policies. [ ... ] And I hope to appoint justices to the Supreme Court that will follow the law and the constitution. And it would be my preference that they reverse Roe v. Wade and therefore they return to the people and their elected representatives the decisions with regards to this important issue. — Mitt Romney

Justices are not politicians. They don't run on a political platform, and senators should not ask them to do so. — John Cornyn

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

If only the court had acted more slowly,' RBG said, and cut down one state law at a time the way she had gotten them to do with the jury and benefit cases. The justices could have been persuaded to build an architecture of women's equality that could house reproductive freedom. She said the very boldness of Roe, striking down all abortion bans until viability, had 'halted a political process that was moving in a reform direction and thereby, I believe, prolonged divisiveness and deferred stable settlement of the issue. (85). — Irin Carmon

Sometimes one of the justices, because they're, you know, they're brilliant lawyers themselves, can put the question in a particular way so that, even if you've prepared to talk about the topic, the question is put in such an excruciatingly difficult way that there's just no good way to handle it. — Donald Verrilli Jr.

Hillary Clinton will nominate justices to the Supreme Court who are prepared to overturn Citizens United! — Bernie Sanders

Since the writing of our Constitution, our religious liberties have been systematically threatened and whittled away by Supreme Court justices who interpret the First Amendment as a prohibition against religious activity on public property. — Tim LaHaye

We became a congresswoman, a stay-at-home mom, a filmmaker, and a journalist. And Lino and I taught our children that they could rise to even greater heights. They could become surgeons, CEOs, supreme court justices, secretary of state, and even president of the United States. We didn't teach our daughters that they were second-class citizens. — Diana DeGette

This is the difference between conservatives and liberals. Liberals want justices to vote a certain way. We [ conservatives] want a particular legal philosophy, a philosophy for how to interpret the Constitution. — Ann Coulter

There have been 111 Justices in the Supreme Court of the United States. Only three have been women. If she is confirmed, Solicitor General Kagan will bring the Supreme Court to an historical high-water mark, with three women concurrently serving as Justices. — Patrick Leahy

One thing I've experienced and I feel really grateful for now that I'm on my way out is that I felt that the justices gave that back to me. I really did. You know, of course, you can have some sharp exchanges. That's the nature of the thing, and that's fine. But really in the main I felt like the tone from them was, "Yeah. We may not agree with you, but we're going to have a discussion about this." And it did. — Donald Verrilli Jr.

The people of Ohio are not happy with what he's doing. I can tell you that. They're not happy with what [John Kasich] is doing. But the Republican Party more than any other thing has to have a victory, a presidential victory, for one thing, if nothing else: Supreme Court justices. — Donald Trump

Within the pages of The Betrayal of America I prove that these justices were absolutely up to no good, and they deliberately set out to hand the election to George Bush. — Vincent Bugliosi

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

What I don't like is judges legislating from the bench. And as president of the United States, I will appoint justices who uphold the Constitution and who don't see themselves as a super legislature. — Michele Bachmann

Strangely enough, politics may just be the one realm in which having kids imposes no penalty on women. Kids are practically a necessity. For scientists, or Supreme Court justices, or chief executives, or the woman who wants to learn to fly F-l8s off an aircraft carrier, it works differently. — Stacy Schiff

While some of the tales of woe emanating from the court are enough to bring tears to the eyes, it is true that only Supreme Court justices and schoolchildren are expected to and do take the entire summer off. — John Roberts

We give Supreme Court justices this freedom because we expect them to remain above the pull of politics, to avoid the effects of public excitement and allow a broader view, not tied to the whims of the majority at a certain moment in history. — Herb Kohl

As Kingfishers Catch Fire
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves
goes itself; _myself_ it speaks and spells,
Crying _What I do is me: for that I came_.
I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces. — Gerard Manley Hopkins

I do try very hard to develop themes that are easily understood and that, hopefully, will paint vivid images of the legal principles and implications of the ruling that will stick in the Justices' heads and will help influence how they think about the case. — Patricia Millett

(45) We will appoint as justices, constables, sheriffs, or other officials, only men that know the law of the realm and are minded to keep it well. — Patrick Henry

In the final scene of Power, the Supreme Court justices appear as a striking abstraction: Nine scowling masks line up in a row on top of a giant podium. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes speaks the majority opinion: 'Water power, the right to convert it into electric energy, and the electric energy thus produced constitute property belonging to the United States. — Susan Quinn

Every time I lied to my dad I felt like I was going up against the Supreme Court justices and pleading my case. — Claire Contreras

I'm convinced that our duty to provide advice and consent for justices of the Supreme Court is our most important constitutional responsibility. — Frank Lautenberg

The American Jews are liberal en masse because the 'Bill Of Rights' guarantees for them (through their evolutionist Justices) to keep the majority and their 'Democracy' in check. — Ibrahim Ibrahim

I am not a committed pacifist. I would not hold that it is under all imaginable circumstances wrong to use violence, even though use of violence is in some sense unjust. I believe that one has to estimate relative justices. But the use of violence and the creation of some degree of injustice can only be justified on the basis of the claim and the assessment-which always ought to be undertaken very, very seriously and with a good deal of scepticism that this violence is being exercised because a more just result is going to be achieved. — Noam Chomsky

The most ridiculous were those who, on their own authority, made themselves the judges and justices of the tribe. They seemed never to suspect that our judgments judge us, and that nothing exposes our weaknesses and reveals ourselves more naively than the attitude of pronouncing upon our neighbors. — Paul Valery

It is profoundly troubling when you have Supreme Court justices not following their judicial oath. And taking the role of policy makers and legislators, rather than being judges. — Ted Cruz

I think that the justices were totally answering the way that they should. I think that the senators, as best I could tell, for the most part, Democrat and Republican, respected that. — Fred Thompson

In order to understand and appreciate -yet justifiably- the significance of the US Bill of Rights, you must first see what the Jews did and are doing with it in the US through their Active Justices and Judges and then observe the consequences of its absence in contemporary Germany. Man already knows the horrifying results of the latter configuration, but only few are those who know the scale of transgression committed in the former; and even fewer who can see such a cycle. — Ibrahim Ibrahim

Pharaoh is divinity made in flesh. The nobility are his deputies who reflect his light. How could their places be filled by a bunch of peasants, artisans and fishermen?" interjected Djoser.

"Yet they indeed take their positions," Abnum answered, "proving that they were better than those whom they replaced and that the gods embody themselves in whoever raises the standard of justices and mercy, regardless of their identities. — Naguib Mahfouz

The Supreme Court would benefit from the addition of a justice who has real experience as a practicing lawyer. The current justices have all been chosen from the lower federal courts. A nominee with relevant non-judicial experience would bring a different and useful perspective to the court. — Harry Reid

Let it be said that when given a chance to complete the liberation of black Americans, on June 23, 2003 five justices consigned them to another generation - or, perhaps, a term of indefinite duration - of virtual enslavement to the past. — Ward Connerly

In 'Bush v. Gore,' five justices had a partisan outcome in mind and then made up the judicial principle to justify it, while claiming that the decision would not be precedent for any future cases. — Marvin Ammori

The Justices are currently considering a case, argued last month, which seeks to extend the writ of habeas corpus to al Qaeda and Taliban detainees at Guantanamo. — John Yoo

While I have the greatest respect for the Supreme Court's members, I cannot claim familiarity with any particular judicial philosophies the justices might possess. — Patricia Millett

I believe that justices must recognize that our Constitution is an 18th-century document that needs to be applied in the context of the 21st century. — Frank Lautenberg

To hear both critics and defenders talk about the fitness of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, you'd think the most successful Supreme Court justices had been warm, collegial consensus-builders. But history tells a different story. — Noah Feldman

In my lifetime, it's the Supreme Court, not Congress, that integrated our public schools, that allowed people of different races to marry, and established the principle that our government should respect the value of privacy of American families. These decisions are the legacy of justices who chose to expand American freedom. — Dick Durbin

Since Vice President Al Gore is constantly making things up, it should come as no surprise that he wants Supreme Court justices who will do the same. As Gore put it, he will appoint judges who view the Constitution as a 'document that grows'. — Ann Coulter

The Supreme Court justices are able to decide fewer than 1 percent of all the appeals — James Duane

It was OK for the media to pursue Former President Clinton year after year for lying about a private, consensual sexual affair, but we have five justices who committed one of the biggest crimes in American History, and it ceased to be a big story. — Vincent Bugliosi

All social space is suffused with political meanings and agendas, the very stones and walls a kind of testament to the ongoing struggles for liberation and justices. — Mark Kingwell

The traditional practice is that the justices don't ask the attorney general any questions, so as not to embarrass him. But Bobby Kennedy had let them know that he didn't mind if they asked him questions and they did. — Harold H. Greene

As president, he immediately invited the gay activists who helped elect him to "LGBT" receptions at the White House, where he assured them that crusty Americans could one day be cajoled out of their "worn arguments and old attitudes." "Welcome to your White House," he burbled, promising to support every item on the LGBT agenda: "We've been in office six months now. I suspect that by the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration." They do. Should Obama win a second term, the justices he appoints will almost certainly unveil a bogus new constitutional right to gay marriage, discovered within the "penumbras" of Lawrence v. Texas. At which point Obama, drawing upon the faux-pained honesty he has perfected, can regurgitate what he wrote in his memoirs: that he was once on "the wrong side of history" but has now happily come into the light. — Phyllis Schlafly

I think [Louis] Brandeis challenges all of the current justices. As he said, "If we would guide by the light of reason, we must let our minds be bold." You have to take the values that the framers were concerned about and translate them into this new age. — Jeffrey Rosen

I think the nine justices think the solicitor general is the 35th clerk. — Elena Kagan

It turns out that justices are also God's children; and being of this world, their makeup consists of actual flesh and blood. They are no more noble or virtuous than the rest of us, and in some cases less so, as they suffer from the usual human imperfections and frailties. And the Court's history proves it. — Mark Levin

When justices seize authority from the other branches of the federal government, as well as state and local governments, under the rubric of judicial review, that's tyranny. — Mark Levin

When it comes to the Supreme Court, the American people have only two times when they have any input into how our Constitution is interpreted and who will have the privilege to do so.First, we elect a president who has the power to nominate justices to the Supreme Court.Second, the people, acting through their representatives in the Senate, have their say on whether the president's nominee should in fact be confirmed. — Mike DeWine

If the question [before justices of the peace] relate to any point of public liberty, or if it be one of those in which the judges may be suspected of bias, the jury undertake to decide both law and fact. — Thomas Jefferson

Today, no less than five Supreme Court justices are on record, either through their opinions or speeches (or both), that they will consult foreign law and foreign-court rulings for guidance in certain circumstances. Of course, policymakers are free to consult whatever they want, but not justices. They're limited to the Constitution and the law. — Mark R. Levin

I had a massive victory over Ted [Cruz], it turned out. Remember Indiana was gonna be the change? I was gonna win New York, I was gonna win, then Indiana? But Indiana was a landslide. You gotta get over it. You know, at some point you gotta get over it. Otherwise we're gonna have three or four new Supreme Court justices that are going to be a disaster for the Republican Party. — Donald Trump

At the county level, gentlemen controlled the distribution of justice and charity in their roles as justices of the peace and could hire and fire pastors at will from their seats on the church vestry. One newcomer recalled a gentleman's warning him "against disobliging or offending any person of note in the Colony [because] either by blood or marriage we are almost all related and so connected in our interests that whoever of a stranger presumes to offend any one of us will infallibly find an enemy of the whole."15 — Colin Woodard

At the sessions after I was indicted for an upholder and maintainer of unlawful assemblies and conventicles, and for not conforming to the national worship of the church of England; and after some conference there with the justices, they taking my plain dealing with them for a confession, as they termed it, of the indictment, did sentence me to a perpetual banishment, because I refused to conform. So being again delivered up to the jailer's hands, I was had home to prison, and there have lain now complete twelve years, waiting to see what God would suffer these men to do with me. — John Bunyan

Let us not be justices of the peace, but angels of peace. — Therese Of Lisieux

Judicial activists are nothing short of radicals in robes
contemptuous of the rule of law, subverting the Constitution at will, and using their public trust to impose their policy preferences on society. In fact, no radical political movement has been more effective in undermining our system of government than the judiciary. And with each Supreme Court term, we hold our collective breath hoping the justices will do no further damage, knowing full well they will disappoint. Such is the nature of judicial tyranny. — Mark R. Levin

It is a mistake to suppose that the Supreme Court is either honoured or helped by being spoken of as beyond criticism. On the contrary, the life and character of its justices should be the objects of constant watchfulness by all, and its judgments subject to the freest criticism. — David Josiah Brewer

'Empathy' is the latest code word for liberal activism, for treating the Constitution as malleable clay to be kneaded and molded in whatever form justices want. It represents an expansive view of the judiciary in which courts create policy that couldn't pass the legislative branch or, if it did, would generate voter backlash. — Karl Rove

Woman. My lord, said she, he is kept unlawfully in prison; they clapped him up before there was any proclamation against the meetings; the indictment also is false. Besides, they never asked him whether he was guilty or no; neither did he confess the indictment. One of the Justices. Then one of the justices that stood by, whom she knew not, said, My Lord, he was lawfully convicted. Wom. It is false, said she; for when they said to him, Do you confess the indictment? he said only this, that he had been at several meetings, both where there were preaching the Word, and prayer, and that they had God's presence among them. Judge Twisdon. Whereat Judge Twisdon answered very angrily, saying, What, you think we can do what we list; your husband is a breaker of the peace, and is convicted by the law, etc. Whereupon Judge Hale called for the Statute Book. Wom. But, said she, my lord, he was not lawfully convicted. — John Bunyan

The main point of the Klan's orgy of violence was to prevent blacks from voting - voting, that is, for Republicans. Leading Democrats, including at least one president, two Supreme Court justices, and innumerable senators and congressmen, were Klan members. — Dinesh D'Souza

In a recent decision of the Supreme Court, not made, however, by the full court, and concurred in by only four justices, it was held that the seller of a patented mimeograph could bind the purchaser to use only his ink in the machine, though the ink was not patented. — John Bates Clark

He is careful to deny responsibility for September, but he does not, you notice, condemn the killings. He also refrains from killing words, sparing Roland and Buzot, as if they were beneath his notice. August 10 was illegal, he says; so too was the taking of the Bastille. What account can we take of that, in revolution? It is the nature of revolutions to break laws. We are not justices of the peace; we are legislators to a new world. — Hilary Mantel

The justices have constitutionally protected obscenity in libraries, filth over cable television, and now unlimited internet pornography. — Phyllis Schlafly

FDR's justices were allies while he was alive, but after he died, they developed four totally different theories of what the Constitution is, two of which are considered conservative and two of which are considered liberal. — Noah Feldman

This is the most historic moment in Supreme Court history in our lifetime, no question about it. These are justices who are going to serve for decades. — Jay Alan Sekulow

If Americans loved judicial activism, liberals wouldn't be lying about what it is. Judicial activism means making up constitutional rights in order to strike down laws the justices don't like based on their personal preferences. It's not judicial activism to strike down laws because they violate the Constitution. — Ann Coulter

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

The papers reveal that in several key abortion cases, justices were keenly interested in the perceived public reaction to their rulings - indicating that courts can be influenced by public sentiment. — Lee Greenwood

Justice [Sonia]Sotomayor said, "Let's talk - you want to talk about the tax power."And I got like a 10-minute run on the tax power. And, boy, was I glad I did because I was able to get across this idea that, yes, this is a narrower ground on which you can affirm it. And I think everybody agrees. I think even the dissenting justices ultimately in the case agreed that, if Congress had expressly called it a tax, it would be indisputably constitutional. — Donald Verrilli Jr.

A national legal organization is giving very serious thought to using The Betrayal of America as a legal basis for asking the House Judiciary Committee to institute impeachment proceedings against these five justices. — Vincent Bugliosi

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

If you want a president who will upend the status quo in Washington, D.C., and appoint justices of the Supreme Court who will uphold the Constitution, we have but one choice, and that man is ready. This team is ready. Our party is ready and when we elect Donald Trump, the 45th president. — Mike Pence

'Bush v. Gore' gave us a president who lost the popular vote, eventually appointed two more justices, and led us into a war of choice while failing to regulate a financial system dependent on toxic mortgage-backed derivatives. — Marvin Ammori

Young women need to know that abortion rights and abortion access are not presents bestowed or retracted by powerful men (or women) - Presidents, Supreme Court justices, legislators, lobbyists - but freedoms won, as freedom always is, by people struggling on their own behalf. — Katha Pollitt

When I worked in the Department of Justice, in the office of the solicitor general, it was my job to argue cases for the United States before the Supreme court. I always found it very moving to stand before the justices and say, 'I speak for my country.' — John Roberts

But fairness is where we're heading, at least in regard to marriage, which has emerged as the terrain on which Americans are hashing out their feelings about gays and lesbians. The trajectory is undeniable. The trend line is clear. And the choice before the justices is whether to be handmaidens to history, or whether to sit it out. — Frank Bruni

Why shouldn't two new Justices be appointed each administration? A re-elected President would then have four opportunities to appoint. At the beginning of each administration, the two oldest Justices would automatically hand in their resignations, to take effect at the President's convenience. Thus new blood would be infused into the Court at regular intervals without rancour, and the Court would normally be renewed every 16 years ... Whenever death or retirement occurred, the President would have an extra appointment. — Harriet Boyd Hawes

It's sobering to think of the seventeen chief justices; certainly a solid majority of them have to be characterized as failures. The successful ones are hard to number. — John Roberts

I think, again, on issues of energy, how are we going to fully utilize our energy resources in this country? What is the role of the federal government in higher education? What kind of justices would you appoint to the Supreme Court, not just because we have a vacancy now, but at least one or two potentially in the next four to eight years? — Marco Rubio

A chief justice's authority is really quite limited, and the dynamic among all the justices is going to affect whether he can accomplish much or not. There is this convention of referring to the Taney Court, the Marshall Court, the Fuller Court, but a chief justice has the same vote that everyone else has. — John Roberts

It would mean a continuation of his relentless expansion of federal government power; more explosive increases in his crushing, multitrillion-dollar inter-generational debt; a weak foreign policy coupled with his evisceration of America's military; and the likelihood that more Obama-appointed Supreme Court justices would assure a left-leaning majority on America's top court for at least a generation. — Aaron Klein

Painters
and storytellers, including poets and playwrights and historians, they are the justices of the Supreme Court of Good and Evil, of which I am now a member, and to which you may belong someday! — Kurt Vonnegut

We current justices read the Constitution in the only way that we can: as 20th-century Americans. — William J. Brennan Jr.

My casino experience is to someone else their experience with their employer, of how the company has elected to behave solely for greed, profits, and spite. But we shouldn't give up hope in such situations. We have an obligation to separate the justices from the injustices. We should hold these corporate neighbors accountable for the wrongs that they commit.
Someone has to. — John-Talmage Mathis

August 19, 1981: President Ronald Reagan nominates Sandra Day O'Connor to be the first woman on the Supreme Court. Male justices who had made noises over the years about resigning if a woman ever joined their ranks stay put. — Irin Carmon

Politically or ideologically oriented evaluations of Chief Justice Rehnquist should not overlook what a successful and popular chief justice he was within the Court as the justices' presiding officer, .. The contrast between Rehnquist's undeniably happy Court and that of his predecessor, Warren E. Burger, could not have been greater. — David Garrow

Our chief justices have probably had more profound and lasting influence on their times and on the direction of the nation than most presidents. — Richard M. Nixon