I think people know very little, really, about the court, how it works and its history. And both of those things are important in our country, but they’re not things that most citizens know much about.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNORI loved my husband very much, and it was heartbreaking to have him develop Alzheimer’s disease, and to stand by and watch him decline in his ability to take care of himself.
More Sandra Day O'Connor Quotes
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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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I had become increasingly concerned in recent years about the lack of civics education in our nation’s schools. In recent years, the schools have stopped teaching it. And it’s unfortunate.
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I think most people didn’t want to do court duty.
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I have always thought that while it’s wonderful to be the first to do something, you don’t want to be the last.
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And I went off to Stanford, I was pretty young and pretty naive. And I had a professor I really loved, who was himself a lawyer.
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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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Unfortunately civility is hard to codify or legislate, but you know it when you see it. It’s possible to disagree without being disagreeable.
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(W)e do not count heads before enforcing the First Amendment.
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I tried to decide each case based on the law and the Constitution.
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It was better for me when I was joined at the court by a second woman. When I was there alone, there was too much media focus on the one woman, and the minute we got another woman, that changed.
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Historically courts in this country have been insulated. We do not look beyond our borders for precedents.
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Do the best you can in every task, no matter how unimportant it may seem at the time. No one learns more about a problem than the person at the bottom.
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The freedom to criticize judges and other public officials is necessary to a vibrant democracy.
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I’m not on the court anymore, so no use looking for my philosophy. If somebody’s waiting for that, they can wait for another justice.
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It is a measure of the framers’ fear that a passing majority might find it expedient to compromise 4th Amendment values that these values were embodied in the Constitution itself.
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