Day by day, case by case, the Supreme Court is busy designing a Constitution for a country I do not recognize.
ANTONIN SCALIABear in mind that brains and learning, like muscle and physical skill, are articles of commerce. They are bought and sold. You can hire them by the year or by the hour. The only thing in the world not for sale is character.
More Antonin Scalia Quotes
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In a big family the first child is kind of like the first pancake. If it’s not perfect, that’s okay, there are a lot more coming along.
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To many Americans, everything from the Easter morning to the Ascension had to be made up by the groveling enthusiasts as part of their plan to get themselves martyred.
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Words have meaning. And their meaning doesn’t change.
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The court’s job is to uphold the Constitution and you don’t call that off in times of crisis. Would the framers have allowed this practice?
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A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable.
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In the eyes of government we are just one race here. It is American.
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As long as judges tinker with the Constitution to ‘do what the people want,’ instead of what the document actually commands, politicians who pick and confirm new federal judges will naturally want only those who agree with them politically.
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The virtue of a democratic system with a [constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech] is that it readily enables the people, over time, to be persuaded that what they took for granted is not so, and to change their laws accordingly.
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I even accept for the sake of argument that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged.
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Who ever thought that intimacy and spirituality [whatever that means] were freedoms? And if intimacy is, one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie.
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The wise do not investigate such silliness.
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On this day, when we’re celebrating our constitutional heritage, I urge you to be faithful to that heritage – to impose on our fellow citizens only the restrictions that are there in the Constitution, not invent new ones, not to invent the right because it’s a good idea.
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[The] government has room to scale back individual rights during wartime without violating the Constitution. The Constitution just sets minimums. Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires.
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A Bill of Rights that means what the majority wants it to mean is worthless.
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There is nothing new in the realization that the Constitution sometimes insulates the criminality of a few in order to protect the privacy of us all.
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Why can’t the state accede to the public’s wishes?
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Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn’t.
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[International law] doesn’t show what the Constitution originally meant, and it doesn’t show what is fundamentally important to Americans today. It shows what’s fundamentally important to somebody else today.
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Campaign promises are – by long democratic tradition – the least binding form of human commitment.
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If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?
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What is a moderate interpretation of the text? Halfway between what it really means and what you’d like it to mean?
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It is difficult to maintain the illusion that we are interpreting a Constitution, rather than inventing one.
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This is so absurd that it has, to my knowledge, never been contemplated.
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Interior decorating is a rock-hard science compared to psychology practiced by amateurs.
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Bear in mind that brains and learning, like muscle and physical skill, are articles of commerce. They are bought and sold. You can hire them by the year or by the hour. The only thing in the world not for sale is character.
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Persuade your fellow citizens it’s a good idea and pass a law. That’s what democracy is all about. It’s not about nine superannuated judges who have been there too long, imposing these demands on society.
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