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So many of our conversations (about affirmative action) have been dishonest

Clarence Thomas

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

Environment Growth Myself Proud Religious
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 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
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
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
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.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Change Decision Government Institution Marriage Ourselves Society
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.
CLARENCE THOMAS

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

Deep Human Humanity Ourselves Race
So many of our conversations (about affirmative action) have been dishonest
CLARENCE THOMAS

Action Conversation Honesty Ourselves
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
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
I certainly have some very strong libertarian leanings, yes.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Education Learning Liberty Myself Strong
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
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
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
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
Today, now, it is time to move forward, a time to look for what is good in others, what is good in our country. It is time to see what we have in common, what we have to share as human beings and citizens.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Citizenship Country Goodness Human Ourselves Time
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
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
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 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
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
The only people who have quick answers don’t have the responsibility of making the decisions.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Decision People Power Quick Responsibility
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
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
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

So many of our conversations (about affirmative action) have been dishonest

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So many of our conversations (about affirmative action) have been dishonest

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