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 THOMASI 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.
More Clarence Thomas Quotes
-
-
Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot.
CLARENCE THOMAS -
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 -
I grew up in a religious environment, and I’m proud of it.
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 -
I certainly have some very strong libertarian leanings, yes.
CLARENCE THOMAS -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
We’ve talked more about civil rights after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than we talked about it before 1964.
CLARENCE THOMAS -
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 -
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 -
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 -
Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law.
CLARENCE THOMAS -
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