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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

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
Slaying the dragon of delay is no sport for the short-winded.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Leadership Procrastination Sports
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
Historically courts in this country have been insulated. We do not look beyond our borders for precedents.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Borders Country Looks
I don’t think it’s the court’s perceived role to do some explaining of a political nature.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Nature Political Roles Thinking
I’m not on the court anymore, so no use looking for my philosophy. If somebody’s waiting for that, they can wait for another justice.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Justice Philosophy Waiting
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
I sort of thought the framers of the Constitution were talking about the rights of individuals, not corporate entities.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Constitution Rights Talking
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.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Decision Judging People
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 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
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
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
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
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
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
The freedom to criticize judges and other public officials is necessary to a vibrant democracy.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Democracy Intimidation Judging
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
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
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
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 is true that as you have children, there are a good many months when you don’t want to be working full-time. I agree that that’s an issue.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Children Issues Want
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
Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Doubt Jurisprudence Liberty
[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
We have a complex system of government. You have to teach it to every generation.
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

Generations Government Teach

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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