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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

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

Duty People Thinking Want
[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
[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
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
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
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
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
Historically courts in this country have been insulated. We do not look beyond our borders for precedents.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Borders Country Looks
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
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
I think I learned to appreciate and treasure each day, because you don’t know how many you’re going to be given.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Appreciate Gratitude Thinking
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
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
Society as a whole benefits immeasurably from a climate in which all persons, regardless of race or gender, may have the opportunity to earn respect, responsibility, advancement and remuneration based on ability.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Equality Opportunity Responsibility
It matters enormously to a successful democratic society like ours that we have three branches of government, each with some independence and some control over the other two. Thats set out in the Constitution.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Government Successful Two
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 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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