Quotes & Sayings About Supreme Court

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 was covering the Supreme Court when it decided Gideon v. Wainright, and the case has always had special meaning for me. — Anthony Lewis

Charles Evans Hughes, former Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, said: "Men do not die from overwork. They die from dissipation and worry." Yes, from dissipation of their energies - and worry because they never seem to get their work done. — Dale Carnegie

There is no such source and cause of strife, quarrel, fights, malignant opposition, persecution, and war, and all evil in the state, as religion. Let it once enter into our civil affairs, our government soon would be destroyed. Let it once enter our common schools, they would be destroyed. Those who made our Constitution saw this, and used the most apt and comprehensive language in it to prevent such a catastrophe.
[Weiss v. District Board, March 18, 1890] — Supreme Court Of Wisconsin

I deeply regret the damage my original case caused women. I want the Supreme Court to examine the evidence and have a spirit of justice for women and children. — Norma McCorvey

And while I don't believe in mapping out each step of a career, I do believe it helps to have a long-term dream or goal. A long-term dream does not have to be realistic or even specific. It may reflect the desire to work in a particular field or to travel throughout the world. Maybe the dream is to have professional autonomy or a certain amount of free time. Maybe it's to create something lasting or win a coveted prize. Some goals require more traditional paths; anyone who aspires to become a Supreme Court justice should probably start by attending law school. But even a vague goal can provide direction, a far-off guidepost to move toward. With — Sheryl Sandberg

In the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore got more votes than George W. Bush, but still lost the election. The Supreme Court's ruling in Florida gave Bush that pivotal state, and doomed Gore to lose the Electoral College. That odd scenario - where the candidate with the most votes loses - has happened three times in U.S. history. — Juan Williams

The Supreme Court must strike down the government's illegal spying program as a violation of our Fourth Amendment right to privacy. — Rand Paul

[T]he Supreme Court is where the country takes out its dick and tits and decides who's going to get fucked and who's getting a taste of mother's milk. It's constitutional pornography in there[.] — Paul Beatty

Presidents come and go, but the Supreme Court goes on forever. — William Howard Taft

The Supreme Court had the choice not only which way to rule, pro- or anti-gay marriage rights, but also how they were going to rule. They could have ruled just federalism, saying, "This isn't a matter for federal; this isn't a federal issue at all. States should decide it." Or they could decide it on equal protection grounds and say that, "Gay discrimination is wrong." — Barack Obama

Many scientists have interfered with science in precisely the way courts always worried tissue donors might do. "It's ironic," she told me. "The Moore court's concern was, if you give a person property rights in their tissues, it would slow down research because people might withhold access for money. But the Moore decision backfired - it just handed that commercial value to researchers." According to Andrews and a dissenting California Supreme Court judge, the ruling didn't prevent commercialization; it just took patients out of the equation and emboldened scientists to commodify tissues in increasing numbers. Andrews and many others have argued that this makes scientists less likely to share samples and results, which slows research; they also worry that it interferes with health-care delivery. — Rebecca Skloot

I'm a graduate of Princeton, and I just want to say you don't have to go to an Ivy League school to be on the Supreme Court. — Richard Land

My mother used to say: 'It's not enough to be Hungarian. You still need a little talent, too.' To paraphrase her, its not enough to be conservative, you still need to have the brainpower to be a Supreme Court justice. And, if Harriet Miers is confirmed, she likely won't be in the same league with her colleagues in terms of gray matter. — Dick Morris

No matter whether the Constitution follows the flag or not, the Supreme Court follows the election returns. — Finley Peter Dunne

One is entitled to say without qualification that the correlation between prior judicial experience and fitness for the Supreme Court is zero. — Felix Frankfurter

On the day I started college in 1979, no woman had ever been on the United States Supreme Court or served as the Speaker of the House. None had been an astronaut or the solo anchor of a network evening news broadcast. Not one had been president of an Ivy League college or run a serious campaign for president. — Dee Dee Myers

America acknowledged the greatness of Confucius through a trio of ancient lawgivers - Moses flanked by Confucius to his right and Solon on his left - on the monument to "Justice, the Guardian of Liberty" displayed on the eastern pediment of the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C. — Patrick Mendis

More intriguingly, in poll after poll, when Americans are asked what public institutions they most respect, three bodies are always at the top of their list: the Supreme Court, the armed forces, and the Federal Reserve System. All three have one thing in common: they are insulated from the public pressures and operate undemocratically. It would seem that Americans admire these institutions, preciselly because they lead rather than follow. — Fareed Zakaria

I will be vigilant to protect the independence and integrity of the Supreme Court, and I will work to ensure that it upholds the rule of law and safeguards those liberties that make this land one of endless possibilities for all Americans. — John Roberts

The president has the right to select who he wants for the Supreme Court. He doesn't have to get it cleared from Congress, Senate or anybody ... No president before this has come under this kind of scrutiny ... before the committee hearings even begin. — Montel Williams

Big actions, in our system of checks and balances, require approval by Congress and have to pass constitutional muster by the Supreme Court, and some powers are reserved to the states. So this overused "czar" word is a little misleading. But the things America ought to do should include the following: — Denis Hayes

I will say one thing has changed dramatically which is this Supreme Court vacancy, and it will reshape the race on my side, because I'd rather lose an election than lose the Supreme Court. — Hugh Hewitt

Earlier in [2007] the [Prime Minister's Office] had also drawn criticism for trying to muzzle the judiciary. The reproach came from Antonio Lamer, the former chief justice of the Supreme Court ... 'I must say I was taken aback,' said Lamer, who sat on the Supreme Court for twenty years. 'The prime minister is going the wrong route as regards the independence of the judiciary. He's trying to interfere with the sentencing process. — Lawrence Martin

In the town of Ravella, where I have a house, when the Supreme Court said that an act of sodomy, as they describe it, could not be committed between a man and his wife, the entire square burst into laughter. — Gore Vidal

I retired when the Supreme Court rose for the summer recess in 2009, and a couple of weeks later I drove north from Washington with no regrets about the prior 19 years or about the decision to try living a more normal life for whatever time might remain. — David Souter

Our politics have become paralyzed and sometimes poisonous. Instead of protecting Americans' fundamental right to vote, the Supreme Court has protected corporations' right to buy elections. — Hillary Rodham Clinton

Through its interpretation of the Constitution, the Supreme Court hugely shapes the fabric of our society for us and for future generations. — Herb Kohl

Neither you nor I nor Einstein nor the Supreme Court of the United States is brilliant enough to reach an intelligent decision on any problem without first getting the facts — Dale Carnegie

Those selling abortion don't want them to have [the facts]," Virginia said heatedly. "Besides the Supreme Court doesn't agree with you. They judges seem to think we poor women would fall apart if we knew the facts, so they decided women don't have the right to know the full truth." She shook her head. "They've made it legal to withhold vital information, even when a woman requests it, for heaven's sake! — Francine Rivers

The turning point for me was when the Supreme Court installed Bush in 2000, even though he got half a million votes less nationally than Gore. It was nothing more than a bloodless coup and that's when I really started paying attention. — Mark Edwards

We've got another nominee coming up, well qualified, Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owens has a tremendous reputation, tremendous record, but they are already marshalling their forces to try to stop that nomination. — Jay Alan Sekulow

The fallout from the Supreme Court halfway killing Obamacare would likely be more serious than conservatives believe ... Even their own base, which has been told relentlessly that Obamacare represents the end of the America they love, might start to demand a fix once it becomes clear just what they're missing-& what all those blue states with their own exchanges are getting. — Kevin Drum

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

By simply refusing to fund a president's unconstitutional conduct, Congress can stop him dead in his tracks - even after the courts have abdicated their responsibilities to do so. — Mike Lee

You should see what our Founding Fathers used to say to each other and in the early part of our nation. But what they were able to do, especially in Philadelphia in 1787, four months, they argued about what a House should be, what a Senate should be, the power of the president, the Congress, the Supreme Court. And they had to deal with slavery. — Colin Powell

Watch out Mr. Bush! With the exception of economic policy and energy policy and social issues and tax policy and foreign policy and supreme court appointments and Rove-style politics, we're coming in there to shake things up! — Tom Toles

Far be it for the public schools to teach this, but the U.S.A. was founded on basic Judeo-Christian principles. Don't believe me - take a trip to Washington D.C. and tour the Supreme Court building. There you will see a sculpted copy of the Ten Commandments on the wall. — Bill O'Reilly

During the session of the Supreme Court, in the village of -, about three weeks ago, when a number of people were collected in the principal street of the village, I observed a young man riding up and down the street, as I supposed, in a violent passion. — Augustus Baldwin Longstreet

I hope his wife feeds him [Clarence Thomas, Justice, U.S. Supreme Court] lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease ... He is an absolutely reprehensible person. — Julianne Malveaux

For me, there can be no higher public service than serving as a member of the U.S. Supreme Court. — Merrick Garland

It's always an uphill battle to defeat a Supreme Court nominee, but this is a fight worth having. — Kim Gandy

After years of struggle, the U.S. Supreme Court today has made same-sex marriage a reality in California ... I have directed the California Department of Public Health to advise the state's counties that they must begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in California — Jerry Brown

After the Reagan years, there were only three people of color in the Republican Party. Their slogan was 'Republicans - the Other White Meat.' George [H.] Bush tried to dispel the 'whites only' image of his party, often referring to his Mexican-American grandkids as 'the little brown ones over there,' and nominated Clarence Uncle Thomas to the Supreme Court. — Kate Clinton

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

The Supreme Court has said that America is a Christian nation. But to make such a statement today causes reporters, newsmen, and many politicians to go ballistic. — D. James Kennedy

Ever feel like dialing 911 is just simply not enough, and you really need to speak to someone on the Supreme Court ... ? — Josh Stern

Jefferson found in the religion phrases of the First Amendment no vague or fuzzy language to be bent or shaped or twisted as suited any Supreme Court Justice or White House incumbent. That amendment had built a wall, with the ecclesiastical estate on one side and the civil estate on the other. — Edwin Gaustad

When the Supreme Court moved to Washington in 1800, it was provided with no books, which probably accounts for the high quality of early opinions. — Robert Jackson

We will win an election when all the seats in the House and Senate and the chair behind the desk in the Oval Office and the whole bench of the Supreme Court are filled with people who wish they weren't there. — P. J. O'Rourke

The solicitor general is sometimes referred to as the 10th Supreme Court justice - a pretty important position. — Arlen Specter

These people have elevated audacity to symphonic and operatic levels. The Florida Supreme Court relied on new law to resolve the election dispute down there. — Vincent Bugliosi

I look forward to the time when the membership of the Supreme Court's more reflective of the country it serves. — Patrick Leahy

I believe there's tremendous value in having a Supreme Court with a diverse set of experiences - especially when we're dealing with issues that range from our intimate relationships to how we finance campaigns. — Cory Booker

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

Any successful nominee should possess both the temperament to interpret the law and the wisdom to do so fairly. The next Supreme Court Justice should have a record of protecting individual rights and a strong willingness to put aside any political agenda. — Bennie Thompson

If money is a form of speech, as the Supreme Court has regrettably found, rich donors will always be the loudest speakers. — Howard Dean

One of the things that I'm so proud of [about] that movie [Brokeback Mountain], was to see, within the past basically 10 years, how much has changed. When the Supreme Court [issued a ruling] just a little while ago, I felt like we had been part, a little part and parcel of that movement. — Jake Gyllenhaal

Nothing raises the national temperature more than a VACANCY sign hanging from the colonnaded front of the Supreme Court. — Christopher Buckley

When you have incidences like the Trayvon Martin verdict, the erosion of certain fundamental rights like voting, it just reminds us that we're always one Supreme Court justice vote away from losing the progress that has been made. — Terri Sewell

The Supreme Court's 1947 decision which introduced the wall of separation between church and state 'has fueled a movement to sterilize anything in American public life from religion.' — Mickey Edwards

If Harriet Miers were not a crony of the president of the United States, her nomination to the Supreme Court would be a joke, as it would have occurred to no one else to nominate her. — Charles Krauthammer

I do not enjoy being away from Richmond, my friends of a lifetime, and my home ... I do not enjoy working 6 days a week and almost every night at a time when I had planned to be tapering off. There are compensations which appeal to any lawyer who is proud of his profession. The Supreme Court is an awesome place. — Lewis F. Powell Jr.

In Madison's formulation, the right to bear arms was not inherent but derivative, depending on service in the militia. The recent Supreme Court decision (Heller v. District of Columbia, 2008) that found the right to bear arms an inherent and nearly unlimited right is clearly at odds with Madison's original intentions.37 — Joseph J. Ellis

The United States Supreme Court, once a reliable if ultimate recourse for progressive and even revolutionary grievances, has become a retrograde wellspring for enormous economic and social distress. — June Jordan

Here is a needle President Obama needs to thread if he chooses a ninth. The nominee [ for Supreme Court] would need to be so strongly qualified that he or she would be hard to reject. The person must also be willing to be nominated even though leading Senate Republicans have said they will not consider anyone the president names. — Steve Inskeep

It is no coincidence that as the Supreme Court has been removing the last constraints on the legalized corruption of politicians, the American standard of living has been falling at the fastest rate in decades. — Mike Lofgren

Citizens United fought to defend our right to free speech - and won a great victory in the United States Supreme Court. — Marsha Blackburn

The last stop to protect rights and liberties is the Supreme Court. — Dick Durbin

A news event in 1995 shocked both sides in the culture war controversy. Norma Leah McCorvey, the "Jane Roe" in the famous Supreme Court case of 1973, converted to Christ, got baptized, and joined the pro-life campaign. — Philip Yancey

I have ventured to write more intimately about my personal life than is customary for a member of the Supreme Court, and with that candor comes a measure of vulnerability. — Sonia Sotomayor

You just never know what the Supreme Court is going to do. — John Barrasso

Identifying the flaw in the US philosophical roots requires that we move beyond the intellectual and emotional climate in which the Constitution was conceived and adopted. The meanings of concepts and words change with use, and even the Supreme Court has admitted that the original perspective of the American social contract has been altered by the passage of time. — David E. Wilkins

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

When our atheistically dominated Supreme Court removed the Ten Commandments from our halls, not a whimper was heard from the 95 million Christians in this country, who still don't realize that their religious freedoms are being systematically removed without a fight. — Tim LaHaye

Whenever you put a man on the Supreme Court he ceases to be your friend. — Harry S. Truman

The Florida Supreme Court wanted all the legal votes to be counted. The United States Supreme Court, on the other hand, did not want all the votes to be counted. — Vincent Bugliosi

I don't know much about the Supreme Court. If it's anything like the Supreme Taco, it's like a regular court, but with extra sour cream. — Craig Ferguson

As President Franklin Delano Roosevelt learned when he tried to pack the Supreme Court, the three branches of government are coequal for a reason. Neither the executive branch or the legislative branch should use the third branch to a pursue a partisan agenda. — Dan Pfeiffer

It wasn't the Supreme Court that expelled God from our public school classrooms. It was the textbook publishers. — James J. Kilpatrick

Election victories increasingly depend on factors other than who votes, or tries to vote, and for whom. In 2000, the presidency was awarded by the Supreme Court, pre-empting the count of thousands of Florida votes. — Mimi Kennedy

The Constitution makes very clear what the obligation of the United States Senate is and what the obligation of the president of the United States is. To allow a Supreme Court position to remain vacant for well over a year cuts against what I think the intentions of the framers are and what the traditions of the Senate and the executive are. — Cory Booker

Sometimes we talk about why we're importing so many people in our workforce. It might be for the last 35 years, we have aborted more than a million people who would have been in our workforce had we not had the holocaust of liberalized abortion under a flawed Supreme Court ruling in 1973. — Mike Huckabee

All the grand work was laid for people who came after me. The Supreme Court decided not to give it to me, so they gave it to two white guys. I think that's what they were waiting for. — Curt Flood

I don't believe we need a good conservative judge, and I don't believe we need a good liberal judge. I subscribe to the Justice Potter Stewart standard. He was a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. And he said the mark of a good judge, good justice, is that when you're reading their decision, their opinion, you can't tell if it's written by a man or woman, a liberal or a conservative, a Muslim, a Jew or a Christian. You just know you're reading a good judicial decision. — John F. Kerry

The outcome of the Clarence Thomas hearings and his subsequent appointment to the Supreme Court shows how misguided, narrow notions of racial solidarity that suppress dissent and critique can lead black folks to support individuals who will not protect their rights. — Bell Hooks

You can't claim to support equality and not support equal rights." - on Supreme Court's consideration of gay marriage, April 27, 2015 — Chamois Holschuh

If it's a close election, then it's better for the Supreme Court to pick the president, whether or not he won the election. It's just insane on its face. — Vincent Bugliosi

Not a thousand years ago, it was illegal to teach a slave to read. Not a thousand years ago, the Supreme Court decided that separate could not be equal. And today, as we sit here, no one is learning anything in this country. You see a nation which is the leader of the rest of the world, that had to pay the price of that ticket, and the price of that ticket is we're sitting in the most illiterate nation in the world. THE MOST ILLITERATE NATION IN THE WORLD. A monument to illiteracy. And if you doubt me, all you have to do is spend a day in Washington. I am serious as a heart attack. — James Baldwin

The President must be true to his word. He must keep his faith with the folks who elected him twice. In other words, he must replace Sandra Day O'Connor with a strict constructionist. The president has a God-given opportunity to change the balance on the Supreme Court. On issue after issue - abortion, sodomy, public display of the Ten Commandments - O'Connor has sided with the court's liberal bloc. Time and again, Justice O'Connor and her colleagues have used the Constitution as an excuse to force weird social experiments on the nation. — Rick Scarborough

Capitalism is out of control, thanks in no small part to Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision which said that a corporation is a person, even though it doesn't eat, drink, make love, sing, raise children or take care of aging parents. You can't have a people's democracy as long as corporations are considered people. — Bill Moyers

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

We are confident that the Supreme Court will soon see the direction that this country is headed and enshrine marriage as a constitutional right for all. — Benjamin Todd Jealous

The White House said today that Judge Clarence Thomas, President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, had smoked marijuana while in college. — Clarence Thomas

Ask any real estate broker to name the three most important factors in buying a property, and he'll say: "Location, location, location." Now ask him to name the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, and he'll say: "Location, location, location." This tells us that we should not necessarily be paying a whole lot of attention to real estate brokers. — Dave Barry

I was not a community organizer before I was elected to the Senate, i spent five and a half years as the solicitor-general of Texas, the chief lawyer for the state of Texas in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. — Ted Cruz

The law, in this country, is dead. The Supreme Court doesn't follow the Constitution, Congress doesn't follow the Constitution. The President doesn't even want to follow the Constitution. And yet we're the ones called radical. — Matt Shea

The kind of corruption the media talk about, the kind the Supreme Court was concerned about, involves the putative sale of votes in exchange for campaign contributions. — James L. Buckley

We are not in the regime of Aurangzeb. We are in the regime of rule of law. When rule of law is concerned, it applies to government, it applies to Supreme Court, it applies to everybody. — Veerappa Moily

Nominees [to Supreme Court] shouldn't be expected to pre-commit to ruling on certain issues in a certain way. Nor should senators ask nominees to pledge to rule on issues in a particular way. — Chuck Grassley