black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

It really bugs me that someone will tell me, after I spent 20 years being educated, how I’m supposed to think.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Control Education Myself Thinking
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
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 grew up in a religious environment, and I’m proud of it.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Environment Growth Myself Proud Religious
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
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
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
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
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
But what I believe is that if a person’s individual rights or right to be a part of our economic system is violated under statute, we aggressively go after it. But we don’t issue mandates to businesses that you’ve got to do this and you’ve got to do that.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Believe Business Issues Person Violence Yourself
And I thank God I believe in God, or I would probably be enormously angry right now.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Angry God Myself Right Thankful
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
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
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
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
So many of our conversations (about affirmative action) have been dishonest
CLARENCE THOMAS

Action Conversation Honesty Ourselves
I don’t really have the luxury to be bitter. I don’t have the luxury of having negative things in my life.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Life Luxury Myself Negative
To define each of us by our race is nothing short of a denial of our humanity.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Deep Human Humanity Ourselves Race
The job of a judge is to figure out what the law says, not what he wants it to say. There is a difference between the role of a judge and that of a policy maker… Judging requires a certain impartiality.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Difference Impartial Judgement Law
I do think that our freedoms are at risk.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Freedom Myself Ourselves Risk Thinking
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
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
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
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
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
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 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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Clarence Thomas Quotes