Antonin Scalia Quotes

United States, Judge
March 11, 1936 – February, 13, 2016.

Antonin Gregory Scalia (/ˈæntəˌnɪn skəˈliːə/ ; March 11, 1936 – February 13, 2016) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. Appointed to the Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, Scalia was described as the intellectual anchor for the originalist and textualist position in the Court's conservative wing.

If I were king, I would not allow people to go about burning the American flag. However, we have a First Amendment which says that the right of free speech shall not be abridged. And it is addressed, in particular, to speech critical of the government.

Antonin Scalia
- People
- American
- Free
A system of government that makes the People subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy.

Antonin Scalia
- People
- Democracy

Among the questions considered nonjusticiable is the definition of an impeachable offense. Whatever Congress says is an impeachable offense is an impeachable offense.

Antonin Scalia
Laws prohibiting sodomy do not seem to have been enforced against consenting adults acting in private... I do not know what 'acting in private' means; surely consensual sodomy, like heterosexual intercourse, is rarely performed on stage.

Antonin Scalia
I don't think it's a living document, I think it's dead. More precisely, I think it's enduring. It doesn't change. I think that needs to be orthodoxy.

Antonin Scalia
It is one of the unhappy incidents of the federal system that a self-righteous Supreme Court, acting on its Members' personal view of what would make a 'more perfect Union' (a criterion only slightly more restrictive than a 'more perfect world') can impose its own favored social and economic dispositions nationwide.

Antonin Scalia
- World
- Perfect