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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

Each justice hires their own clerks, and applications are made individually to the justices. It isn’t a group decision.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Clerks Decision Justice
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.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Country People Thinking
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
It was better for me when I was joined at the court by a second woman. When I was there alone, there was too much media focus on the one woman, and the minute we got another woman, that changed.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Focus Media Too Much
I think it’s inevitable that some of the court’s decisions will be found by a segment of the public to be not the right decision or subject to criticism.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Criticism Decision Thinking
Despite the encouraging and wonderful gains and the changes for women which have occurred in my lifetime, there is still room to advance and to promote correction of the remaining deficiencies and imbalances.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Gains Imbalance Rooms
[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.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Church Community Political
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
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
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
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
[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
If a State refused to let religious groups use facilities open to others, then it would demonstrate not neutrality but hostility toward religion.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Christian Groups Religious
(W)e do not count heads before enforcing the First Amendment.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Atheism Firsts Religion
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.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Great Day Jobs Thinking
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.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Children Example Parent

I have always thought that while it’s wonderful to be the first to do something, you don’t want to be the last.

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I have always thought that while it’s wonderful to be the first to do something, you don’t want to be the last.

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