Sandra Day O'Connor Quotes
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Most high courts in other nations do not have discretion, such as we enjoy, in selecting the cases that the high court reviews. Our court is virtually alone in the amount of discretion it has.
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Half the states have stopped making civics and government a requirement for high school. Half.
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In order to cultivate a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry, it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity.
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What the framers of the Constitution tried to achieve when they wrote that Constitution back in the 1700s was an independent federal judiciary. They wanted federal judges to be appointed by the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate, and to serve for good behavior.
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Be aware that even before you have reached your ultimate professional destination, if you always strive for excellence, you can and should have a substantial impact on the world in which you live.
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There was no hostility at the court when I arrived.
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Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms. As for the victims, the government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more. The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result.
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I think it's inevitable that some of the court's decisions will be found by a segment of the public to be not the right decision or subject to criticism.
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For students, understanding the separate and unique functions of each branch of government can help them understand how different kinds of government officials can help solve different kinds of problems.
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How dare you make my life a felony.
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You have citizens who don't understand how government works and they're kind of soured on it. All they do is criticize. They have no idea that they can make things happen.
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When I went to law school, which after all was back in the dark ages, we never looked beyond our borders for precedents. As a state court judge, it never would have occurred to me to do so, and when I got to the Supreme Court, it was very much the same. We just didn't do it.
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It matters enormously to a successful democratic society like ours that we have three branches of government, each with some independence and some control over the other two. Thats set out in the Constitution.
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It is difficult to discern a serious threat to religious liberty from a room of silent, thoughtful schoolchildren.
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It is true that as you have children, there are a good many months when you don't want to be working full-time. I agree that that's an issue.
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The more education a woman has, the wider the gap between men's and women's earnings for the same work.
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The destiny of the woman must be shaped to a large extent on her own conception of her spiritual imperative and her place in society.
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The family unit plays a critical role in our society and in the training of the generation to come.
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Young women today often have very little appreciation for the real battles that took place to get women where they are today in this country. I don't know how much history young women today know about those battles.
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We have a complex system of government. You have to teach it to every generation.
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The freedom to criticize judges and other public officials is necessary to a vibrant democracy. The problem comes when healthy criticism is replaced with more destructive intimidation and sanctions.
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We don't accomplish anything in this world alone.
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Suppose you had a cross burning in a play or a movie... Would that be intimidating?
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Historically courts in this country have been insulated. We do not look beyond our borders for precedents.