50+ Clarence Thomas Quotes | Minimalist Quotes

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

Action Conversation Honesty Ourselves
The only people who have quick answers don’t have the responsibility of making the decisions.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Decision People Power Quick Responsibility
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
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 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
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
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
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 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
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
It takes a person with a mission to succeed.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Mission Person Success
And I thank God I believe in God, or I would probably be enormously angry right now.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Angry God Myself Right Thankful
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
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
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
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
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
You didn’t think of angels as white or black. They were angels.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Angel Black Thinking White Yourself
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
I was sympathetic to virtually all groups that wanted to get away from the old system.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Myself Old Run Sympathy System
I certainly have some very strong libertarian leanings, yes.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Education Learning Liberty Myself Strong
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
Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Attitude Best Character Education Goodness Inspirational
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
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

Clarence Thomas Quotes

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