History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.
THURGOOD MARSHALLWe can always stick together when we are losing, but tend to find means of breaking up when we’re winning.
More Thurgood Marshall Quotes
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Truth is more than a mental exercise.
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None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps.
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To protest against injustice is the foundation of all our American democracy.
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Do what you think is right and let the law catch up.
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Surely the fact that a uniformed police officer is wearing his hair below his collar will make him no less identifiable as a policeman.
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A child born to a Black mother in a state like Mississippi… has exactly the same rights as a white baby born to the wealthiest person in the United States. It’s not true, but I challenge anyone to say it is not a goal worth working for.
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We can always stick together when we are losing, but tend to find means of breaking up when we’re winning.
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The Constitution was a product of its times.
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Ending racial discrimination in jury selection can be accomplished only by eliminating peremptory challenges entirely.
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I cannot accept this invitation for I do not believe that the meaning of the Constitution was forever ‘fixed’ at the Philadelphia Convention… To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start. [Progressive]
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What is the quality of your intent?
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Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men’s minds.
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The death penalty is no more effective a deterrent than life imprisonment. It is also evident that the burden of capital punishment falls upon the poor, the ignorant and the underprivileged members of society.
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Our Constitution is the envy of the world, as it should be for it is the grand design of the finest nation on earth.
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Mere access to the courthouse doors does not by itself assure a proper functioning of the adversary process.
THURGOOD MARSHALL






