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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 Thomas

The Constitution does not vest in Congress the authority to protect society from every bad act that might befall it. If followed to its logical extreme, [this approach] would result in an unwarranted expansion of federal power.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Authority Constitution Power Protection Result Society
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

Black Confusion Myself Sacrifice Thinking
We’ve talked more about civil rights after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than we talked about it before 1964.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Civil Right Talk Time War
I actually think that I have been fortunate to have had misfortune, because the response, in responding to the misfortune, you develop in your own life, you develop sort of the tools you need to continue on, or to do better.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Development Fortunate Life Myself Respond Thinking Tools
I have to admit that I’m one of those people that thinks the dishwasher is a miracle.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Improvement Magic Myself People Thinking
Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Equality Government Law Protection Recognition Respect
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

Break Fight Freedom Law Ourselves Punishment Society Talk Theory
I was sympathetic to virtually all groups that wanted to get away from the old system.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Myself Old Run Sympathy System
My grandfather was a man, when he talked about freedom, his attitude was really interesting. His view was that you had obligations or you had responsibilities, and when you fulfilled those obligations or responsibilities, that then gave you the liberty to do other things.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Attitude Freedom Liberty Man Responsibility Talk View Yourself
The myths that are created about the South, about the way we grew up, about black people, are wrong.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Black Creation Fantasy Growth People Wrong
And I thank God I believe in God, or I would probably be enormously angry right now.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Angry God Myself Right Thankful
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

Belief God Government Life Live Moral Myself People Thinking
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

Black Crime Drugs Education People Problem Reality Society System Yourself
The truth of the matter is we have become more interested in designer jeans and break dancing than we are in obligations and responsibilities.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Break Dance Design Fashion Responsibility Truth
I don’t believe in quotas. America was founded on a philosophy of individual rights, not group rights.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Believe Foundation Myself Philosophy Right
When I was a kid, we said that we were precluded from going to certain neighborhoods because of the color of our skin Now the neighborhoods are the neighborhoods of ideas, youre not supposed to be there because of the color of your skin.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Children Color Ideas Myself Skin Yourself
It takes a person with a mission to succeed.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Mission Person Success
Even as someone who’s labeled a conservative – I’m a Republican I’m black, I’m heading up this organization in the Reagan administration – I can say that conservatives don’t exactly break their necks to tell blacks that they’re welcome.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Black Citizenship Identity Myself Organization
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

Constitution Faith God Judgement People
You have a number of choices. You could continue to always fight against people who are really distractions. They’re people in the cheap seats of life. Or you can do what you went there to do.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Choice Distraction Fight Life People Yourself
I love being around people who work with their hands, who do the hard things to keep our country going. They’re just my kind of people.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Country Hands Kind Love Myself Patriot People Work
Any discrimination, like sharp turns in a road, becomes critical because of the tremendous speed at which we are traveling into the high-tech world of a service economy.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Discrimination Economy Myself Road Service Travel
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

Administration Attitude Myself Thinking
I don’t know one of my friends who is considered a conservative who has not had to go back and thoroughly think through everything. You do a lot of soul-searching – ’cause we are not going to win any popularity contests.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Friendship Myself Popular Search Soul Thinking Win
Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Attitude Best Character Education Goodness Inspirational
I think segregation is bad, I think it’s wrong, it’s immoral. I’d fight against it with every breath in my body, but you don’t need to sit next to a white person to learn how to read and write.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Breathe Fight Immoral Learning Myself Person Reading Separate Thinking White Writing Wrong
You didn’t think of angels as white or black. They were angels.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Angel Black Thinking White Yourself

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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