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'CONNORHaving family responsibilities and concerns just has to make you a more understanding person.
More Sandra Day O'Connor Quotes
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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.
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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.
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How dare you make my life a felony.
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[G]overnment endorsement . . . of religion . . . sends a message to nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community.
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If I stumbled badly in doing the job, I think it would have made life more difficult for women, and that was a great concern of mine and still is.
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I think people know very little, really, about the court, how it works and its history. And both of those things are important in our country, but they’re not things that most citizens know much about.
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I finally gave up my little law practice and stayed home for about three years. You have to do what you can to keep the family going. But I wanted to get back to work. So I got another babysitter and went to work as an Assistant Attorney General.
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I’m a judge. It seemed to me that it was critical to try to take action to stem the criticism and help people understand that in the constitutional framework, it’s terribly important not to have a system of retaliation against decisions people don’t like.
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We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.
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Historically courts in this country have been insulated. We do not look beyond our borders for precedents.
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Having family responsibilities and concerns just has to make you a more understanding person.
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I think most people didn’t want to do court duty.
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If parents instill a sense of civic-mindedness – and there is no better way to do that than by example – their children will probably follow.
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I like to think that the court will continue to be held in high regard by the public. I think it should be.
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I sort of thought the framers of the Constitution were talking about the rights of individuals, not corporate entities.
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