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 THOMASBut 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.
More Clarence Thomas Quotes
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The myths that are created about the South, about the way we grew up, about black people, are wrong.
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The thing that bothered me when I was in college was that I saw myself rejecting the way of life that got me to where I was.
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So many of our conversations (about affirmative action) have been dishonest
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I certainly have some very strong libertarian leanings, yes.
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In our society, marriage is not simply a governmental institution; it is a religious institution as well, today’s decision might change the former, but it cannot change the latter.
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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.
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To define each of us by our race is nothing short of a denial of our humanity.
CLARENCE THOMAS