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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

Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Attitude Best Character Education Goodness Inspirational
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

Government Limitation Power Virtual
People get bent out of shape about the fact that when I was a kid, you could not drink out of certain water fountains. Well, the water was the same.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Children Drink Fact Funny Myself People Water
So many of our conversations (about affirmative action) have been dishonest
CLARENCE THOMAS

Action Conversation Honesty Ourselves
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
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
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
It takes a person with a mission to succeed.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Mission Person Success
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
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.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Difference Myself Race Sensitive Sex
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
I was sympathetic to virtually all groups that wanted to get away from the old system.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Myself Old Run Sympathy System
Religious liberty is about freedom of action in matters of religion generally, and the scope of that liberty is directly correlated to the civil restraints placed upon religious practice.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Action Freedom Liberty Place Religious
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
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

Discrimination Illegal Judgement Myself Race
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
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
The only people who have quick answers don’t have the responsibility of making the decisions.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Decision People Power Quick Responsibility
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
I 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.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Liberty Myself Negative Radical
And I thank God I believe in God, or I would probably be enormously angry right now.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Angry God Myself Right Thankful
My grandfather could barely read. My grandmother had a sixth-grade education. They were people who were industrious. They were frugal.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Education Family Industry Myself People Reading
I certainly have some very strong libertarian leanings, yes.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Education Learning Liberty Myself Strong
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
The courts are so willing to assume that anything that is predominantly black must be inferior. The mere fact that a school is black does not mean that it is the product of an unconstitutional violation.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Black Break Fact Production Rule Willing
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

Fortunate Law Need Politics Reality Reason

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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