Thomas Clarence Quotes & Sayings

I don't believe in quotas. America was founded on a philosophy of individual rights, not group rights. — Clarence Thomas

Apple is to the United States government what Clarence Thomas was to the civil rights coalition. How dare you get this big sidestepping us. — Rush Limbaugh

When you look at where the real problems are among minorities in our society, particularly blacks, it's at the bottom. It's the people who are in school systems that don't educate, neighborhoods where there is a lot of crime, drugs, the whole bit. — Clarence Thomas

I remember George Mitchell - I was doing the Clarence Thomas hearing, and there were 48 senators declared they were not prepared to vote for him at the front end. We could have filibustered that and stopped it. George and I - George was the leader at the time - took the heat from every liberal group saying, "No, no, that's not the way the system is supposed to work, since the Constitution - the president shall propose and the Constitution shall dispose, we're going to let them hear this." — Joe Biden

Even as someone who's labeled a conservative - I'm a Republican I'm black, I'm heading up this organization in the Reagan administration - I can say that conservatives don't exactly break their necks to tell blacks that they're welcome. — Clarence Thomas

When I was a kid, we said that we were precluded from going to certain neighborhoods because of the color of our skin Now the neighborhoods are the neighborhoods of ideas, youre not supposed to be there because of the color of your skin. — Clarence Thomas

If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything-and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers. — Clarence Thomas

Classroom Activities
1. Using felt and yarn, make a hand puppet of Clarence Thomas. Ta-da! You're Antonin Scalia! — Jon Stewart

I certainly have some very strong libertarian leanings, yes. — Clarence Thomas

Differences in race, differences in sex, somebody doesn't look at you right, somebody says something. Everybody is sensitive. If I had been as sensitive as that in the 1960s, I'd still be in Savannah. — Clarence Thomas

Republicans are just rich, old, white people - that's all they are. You ever see the Republican National Convention? All white people - six black people: paid actors. James Earl Jones in his most difficult, challenging role! Tune in and attempt to watch him look pleased during a George Bush speech. And Clarence Thomas - as himself. — Andy Kindler

Any discrimination, like sharp turns in a road, becomes critical because of the tremendous speed at which we are traveling into the high-tech world of a service economy. — Clarence Thomas

I believe that there is a moral and constitutional equivalence between laws designed to subjugate a race and those that distribute benefits on the basis of race in order to foster some current notion of equality ... In my mind, government-sponsored racial discrimination based on benign prejudice is just as noxious as discrimination inspired by malicious prejudice. — Clarence Thomas

I was Catholic. You talk about a minority within a minority within a minority: a black Catholic in Savannah, GA. — Clarence Thomas

Women who accuse men, particularly powerful men, of harassment are often confronted with the reality of the men's sense that they are more important than women, as a group. — Anita Hill

I think segregation is bad, I think it's wrong, it's immoral. I'd fight against it with every breath in my body, but you don't need to sit next to a white person to learn how to read and write. The NAACP needs to say that. — Clarence Thomas

So many of our conversations (about affirmative action) have been dishonest — Clarence Thomas

As we watched Judge Clarence
Thomas's Supreme Court confirmation
hearings, all of the commentators
said the same thing: 'One of these
people in the room is lying.' Do you
believe that? You've got two lawyers
and 14 senators in the room, and only
one of them is lying? — Jay Leno

The thing that bothered me when I was in college was that I saw myself rejecting the way of life that got me to where I was. — Clarence Thomas

But I know that the vote of 9 out of 10 black Americans for the Democratic Party or for leftist kinds of policies just is not reflective of their opinions. — Clarence Thomas

I hear people say it affected your self-esteem to be segregated. It never affected mine. — Clarence Thomas

It takes a person with a mission to succeed. — Clarence Thomas

My grandfather could barely read. My grandmother had a sixth-grade education. They were people who were industrious. They were frugal. — Clarence Thomas

You have a number of choices. You could continue to always fight against people who are really distractions. They're people in the cheap seats of life. Or you can do what you went there to do. — Clarence Thomas

My grandfather, as I said, was industrious. He'd had a variety of jobs and decided sometime in the 1940s that he would never work for anyone. He was also a very independent man. — Clarence Thomas

I've probably given more speeches, been on TV more than any other member of the Court - or almost any other member of the Court. — Clarence Thomas

There are so many people who have this idea of who I am because I'm black. — Clarence Thomas

While Roberts wanted to give the impression he respected the right to privacy and the precedent of Roe vs. Wade, his answers look dangerously similar to the responses (Associate Justice) Clarence Thomas gave senators during his confirmation hearings 14 years ago. — Nancy Keenan

Today, now, it is time to move forward, a time to look for what is good in others, what is good in our country. It is time to see what we have in common, what we have to share as human beings and citizens. — Clarence Thomas

I'd grown up fearing the lynch mobs of the Ku Klux Klan; as an adult I was starting to wonder if I'd been afraid of the wrong white people all along - where I was being pursued not by bigots in white robes, but by left-wing zealots draped in flowing sanctimony. — Clarence Thomas

We've talked more about civil rights after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than we talked about it before 1964. — Clarence Thomas

The house of the Plantagenets, from Henry II to Richard III himself, was brimming with blood. In their lust for power the members of the family turned upon one another. King John murdered, or caused to be murdered, his nephew Arthur; Richard II despatched his uncle, Thomas of Gloucester; Richard II was in turn killed on the orders of his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke; Henry VI was killed in the Tower on the orders of his cousin, Edward IV; Edward IV murdered his brother, Clarence, just as his own two sons were murdered by their uncle. It is hard to imagine a family more steeped in slaughter and revenge, of which the Wars of the Roses were only one effusion. It might be thought that some curse had been laid upon the house of the Plantagenets, except of course that in the world of kings the palm of victory always goes to the most violent and the most ruthless. It could be said that the royal family was the begetter of organized crime. — Peter Ackroyd

I agree with the (Supreme Court's) holding that racial discrimination in higher education admissions will be illegal in 25 years. They are illegal now. — Clarence Thomas

When I went into the seminary, I was one of those victims of New Math and had not had Algebra I and had no idea what we were doing in New Math in the ninth grade. But when I went into the seminary, they had gone the traditional route and taught first-year algebra. — Clarence Thomas

I do think that our freedoms are at risk. — Clarence Thomas

Perhaps some are confused because they have stereotypes of how blacks should be and I respectfully decline, as I did in my youth, to sacrifice who I am for who they think I should be. — Clarence Thomas

Religious liberty is about freedom of action in matters of religion generally, and the scope of that liberty is directly correlated to the civil restraints placed upon religious practice. — Clarence Thomas

I tend to really be partial to Ayn Rand, and to The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. — Clarence Thomas

But what I believe is that if a person's individual rights or right to be a part of our economic system is violated under statute, we aggressively go after it. But we don't issue mandates to businesses that you've got to do this and you've got to do that. — Clarence Thomas

Justice Scalia is predictable. He can be counted on to come down with a conservative opinion, and generally, to bring Justice Clarence Thomas with him. — F. Lee Bailey

If I were a black liberal, I would be hailed, I guess. But I'm not. I mean, I think for myself. I want to make my own decisions. — Clarence Thomas

The Constitution, in addition to delegating certain enumerated powers to Congress, places whole areas outside the reach of Congress' regulatory authority. The First Amendment, for example, is fittingly celebrated for preventing Congress from "prohibiting the free exercise" of religion or "abridging the freedom of speech." The Second Amendment similarly appears to contain an express limitation on the government's authority. — Clarence Thomas

I disagree with the prevailing point of view of some black leaders that special treatment for blacks is acceptable. — Clarence Thomas

The only people who have quick answers don't have the responsibility of making the decisions. — Clarence Thomas

I went into the seminary when I was 16. — Clarence Thomas

I grew up in a religious environment, and I'm proud of it. — Clarence Thomas

There's a difference between someone who's 'harsh' and someone who is 'hard.' Life was hard. You lived in the South, as my grandparents did, and you had to survive. That is hard. — Clarence Thomas

I was smart enough to use pot without getting caught, and now I'm on the Supreme Court. If you were stupid enough to get caught, that's your problem. Your appeal is denied. This 40 year sentence just might teach you a lesson. — Clarence Thomas

I would walk into the Carnegie Library and I would see the pictures of Booker T. and pictures of Frederick Douglass and I would read. I would go into the Savannah Public Libraries in the stacks and see all of the newspapers from all over the country. Did I dream that I would be on the Supreme Court? No. But I dreamt that there was a world out there that was worth pursuing. — Clarence Thomas

While the romanticized ideal of universal public education resonates with the cognoscenti who oppose vouchers, poor urban families just want the best education for their children, who will certainly need it to function in our high-tech and advanced society. — Clarence Thomas

If a liberal were to attack Justice Clarence Thomas on the grounds that he's black, we would all go crazy. — Newt Gingrich

It would seem that some black people want to say that when you, as a black, become successful, you cease to be black. That's ridiculous. — Clarence Thomas

It's fascinating that people, there's so many people now who will make judgments based on what you look like. I'm black. So I'm supposed to think a certain way. I'm supposed to have certain opinions. I don't do that. You don't create a box and put people in and then make a lot of generalizations about them. — Clarence Thomas

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. — Clarence Thomas

In July of 1983, I left Washington, DC area and have had minimal contact with Judge Clarence Thomas since. — Anita Hill

You didn't think of angels as white or black. They were angels. — Clarence Thomas

Stellar Wind blew past the Supreme Court on the authority of a dubious opinion sent to the White House the week that the Patriot Act became law. It came from John Yoo, a thirty-four-year-old lawyer in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel who had clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas. Yoo wrote that the Constitution's protections against warrantless searches and seizures did not apply to military operations in the United States. The NSA was a military agency; Congress had authorized Bush to use military force; therefore he had the power to use the NSA against anyone anywhere in America. The — Tim Weiner

To define each of us by our race is nothing short of a denial of our humanity. — Clarence Thomas

I'm not an Uncle Tom ... I'm going to be here for 40 years. For those who don't like it, get over it. — Clarence Thomas

My grandfather was a man, when he talked about freedom, his attitude was really interesting. His view was that you had obligations or you had responsibilities, and when you fulfilled those obligations or responsibilities, that then gave you the liberty to do other things. — Clarence Thomas

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. — Clarence Thomas

I think the only reason Clarence Thomas is on the court is because he is black — Joe Biden

A judge should be evaluated by whether he faithfully upholds his oath to God, not to the people, to the state or to the Constitution. — Clarence Thomas

Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann represent an existential threat to the Democratic Party the way that twenty years ago Clarence Thomas as a black man represented to liberals and the Democratic Party. — Andrew Breitbart

Forty million Americans smoked marijuana; the only ones who didn't like it were Judge Ginsberg, Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton. — Jay Leno

I was sympathetic to virtually all groups that wanted to get away from the old system. — Clarence Thomas

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

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

The Constitution does not vest in Congress the authority to protect society from every bad act that might befall it ... [I]f followed to its logical extreme, [this approach] would result in an unwarranted expansion of federal power. — Clarence Thomas

A theory deeply etched in our law [is that] a free society prefers to punish the few who abuse the rights of free speech after they break the law rather than to throttle them and all others beforehand. — Clarence Thomas

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

Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot. — Clarence Thomas

It really bugs me that someone will tell me, after I spent 20 years being educated, how I'm supposed to think. — Clarence Thomas

People get bent out of shape about the fact that when I was a kid, you could not drink out of certain water fountains. Well, the water was the same. — Clarence Thomas

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

I think, though, if I had to look at the role of government and what it does in people's lives, I see the EEOC as having much more legitimacy than the others, if properly run. — Clarence Thomas

I don't know one of my friends who is considered a conservative who has not had to go back and thoroughly think through everything. You do a lot of soul-searching - 'cause we are not going to win any popularity contests. — Clarence Thomas

Unfortunately, the reality was that, for political reasons or whatever, there was a need to enforce antidiscrimination laws, or at least there was a perceived need to do that. — Clarence Thomas

I'd been very partial to Malcolm X, particularly his self-help teachings. — Clarence Thomas

I have to admit that I'm one of those people that thinks the dishwasher is a miracle. — Clarence Thomas

...back to the USA where there is honor and integrity and Lord knows what else, I thought. I got confused. President Bush and Clarence Thomas and antiabortion and AIDS and Duke and crack and homelessness. And everywhere, MTV, cartoons ads, magazines--just war and sexism and violence. In Mexico, at least a can of cement falls off a scaffold on your head, no Uzis or anything personal. — Lucia Berlin

And I don't think that government has a role in telling people how to live their lives. Maybe a minister does, maybe your belief in God does, maybe there's another set of moral codes, but I don't think government has a role. — Clarence Thomas

Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law. That [affirmative action] programs may have been motivated, in part, by good intentions cannot provide refuge from the principle that under our Constitution, the government may not make distinctions on the basis of race. — Clarence Thomas

I was never a liberal. I was radical. I was cynical. I was negative. But, I was never a liberal. I always saw that as too lukewarm for me. — Clarence Thomas

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

[T]he courts are so willing to assume that anything that is predominantly black must be inferior ... The mere fact that a school is black does not mean that it is the product of an unconstitutional violation. — Clarence Thomas

In our society, marriage is not simply a governmental institution; it is a religious institution as well, today's decision might change the former, but it cannot change the latter. — Clarence Thomas

My job is to write opinions. I decide cases and write opinions. It is not to respond to idiocy and critics who make statements that are unfounded. That doesn't mean that people shouldn't have constructive criticisms, but it should be constructive. — Clarence Thomas

Merely because I was black, it seemed, I was supposed to listen to Hugh Maskela instead of Carole King, just as I was expected to be a radical, not a conservative. I no longer cared to play that game ... The black people I knew came from different places and backgrounds - social, economic, even ethnic - yet the color of our skin was somehow supposed to make us identical in spite of our differences. I didn't buy it. Of course we had all experienced racism in one way or another, but that did not mean we had to think alike — Clarence Thomas

Long gone is the time when we [blacks] opposed the notion that we all looked alike and talked alike. Somehow we have come to exalt the new black stereotype above all and demand conformity to that norm ... [However], I assert my right to think for myself, to refuse to have my ideas assigned to me as though I was an intellectual slave because I'm black. — Clarence Thomas

I am not a conservative but I have spoken out for years against the staggering amount of blind hatred directed at black conservatives by liberals. Liberals are shockingly quick to demean and dismiss brilliant black people like Rice, Carson, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), Professor Walter E. Williams and economist Thomas Sowell because they don't fit into the role they have carved out for a black person in America. Black Americans must be obedient liberals on all things or risk being called a race traitor or an Uncle Tom. — Juan Williams

I have no personal vendetta against Clarence Thomas. I seek only to provide the committee with information which it may regard as relevant. — Anita Hill

The myths that are created about the South, about the way we grew up, about black people, are wrong. — Clarence Thomas

In my humble opinion, those who come to engage in debates of consequence, and who challenge accepted wisdom, should expect to be treated badly. Nonetheless, they must stand undaunted. That is required. And that should be expected. For it is bravery that is required to secure freedom. — Clarence Thomas

And I thank God I believe in God, or I would probably be enormously angry right now. — Clarence Thomas

The Constitution contains no 'dignity' Clause, and even if it did, the government would be incapable of bestowing dignity ... Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them. And those denied governmental benefits certainly do not lose their dignity because the government denies them those benefits. — Clarence Thomas

One of the things that drives me batty is people who think they're court watchers, who say, "Oh, Clarence Thomas. You know, his clerks do all the work for him. You know, he doesn't deserve to be there, and has never done anything." — Dahlia Lithwick

Doesn't anyone wonder why the NAACP does not have events celebrating the first black woman secretary of state?.. Why does an organization whose mission is to advance the lot of blacks not celebrate Clarence Thomas, our black Supreme Court justice? — Star Parker

My grandparents had died in 1983, and suddenly my brother is out jogging before Mass, and he dies. — Clarence Thomas

The absolute worst I have ever been treated, the worst things that have been done to me, the worst things that have been said about me, are by northern liberal elites, not by the people of Savannah, Georgia. — Clarence Thomas