black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Unfortunately civility is hard to codify or legislate, but you know it when you see it. It’s possible to disagree without being disagreeable.

Sandra Day O'Connor

The freedom to criticize judges and other public officials is necessary to a vibrant democracy. The problem comes when healthy criticism is replaced with more destructive intimidation and sanctions.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Democracy Healthy Judging
What was a problem was the excessive amount of media attention to the appointment of the first woman and everything she did. Everywhere that Sandra went, the press was sure to go. And that got tiresome; it was stressful.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Attention Firsts Media
I have always thought that while it’s wonderful to be the first to do something, you don’t want to be the last.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

First Last Something Wonderful
It is a measure of the framers’ fear that a passing majority might find it expedient to compromise 4th Amendment values that these values were embodied in the Constitution itself.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Majority might Politics Value
If statistics are any indication, the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Death May Penalty Statistics
My sense is that jurists from other nations around the world understand that our court occupies a very special place in the American system, and that the court is rather well regarded in comparison, perhaps, to their own.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Country House Special System World
And I went off to Stanford, I was pretty young and pretty naive. And I had a professor I really loved, who was himself a lawyer.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Lawyers Professors Young
I do not believe it is the function of the judiciary to step in and change the law because the times have changed. I do well understand the difference between legislating and judging. As a judge, it is not my function to develop public policy.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Believe Changed Law Times
We have a complex system of government. You have to teach it to every generation.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Generations Government Teach
In order to cultivate a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry, it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Eye Leadership Race
Do the best you can in every task, no matter how unimportant it may seem at the time. No one learns more about a problem than the person at the bottom.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Learning Tasks Time
I think most people didn’t want to do court duty.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Duty People Thinking Want
[Court] is an institution that depends on making tough decisions in close cases for reasons that it explains well and that, in the past at least, have proven satisfactory to the public.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Decision Past Tough
The fact is that knowledge about the Constitution and the Court is not something that is handed down through the gene pool; every generation has to learn it. And I’m not sure the recent generations have done that good a job of learning about it.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Constitution Done Pool
The unhappy persistence of both the practice and the lingering effects of racial discrimination …is an unfortunate reality…and the government is not disqualified from acting in response to it.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Government Persistence Reality
I tried to decide each case based on the law and the Constitution.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Cases Constitution Law

Unfortunately civility is hard to codify or legislate, but you know it when you see it. It’s possible to disagree without being disagreeable.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Unfortunately civility is hard to codify or legislate, but you know it when you see it. It’s possible to disagree without being disagreeable.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Sandra Day O'Connor Quotes