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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

Having family responsibilities and concerns just has to make you a more understanding person.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Family Nature Women
[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 like to think that the court will continue to be held in high regard by the public. I think it should be.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Court Regard Thinking
How dare you make my life a felony.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Dare Felony Gay Lgbt
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
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
The power I exert on the court depends on the power of the power of my arguments, not my gender
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Argument Court Gender
Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Doubt Jurisprudence Liberty
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
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 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
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
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
[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
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 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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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