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'CONNORIf 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.
More Sandra Day O'Connor Quotes
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If a State refused to let religious groups use facilities open to others, then it would demonstrate not neutrality but hostility toward religion.
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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.
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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.
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Unfortunately civility is hard to codify or legislate, but you know it when you see it. It’s possible to disagree without being disagreeable.
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I think I learned to appreciate and treasure each day, because you don’t know how many you’re going to be given.
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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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We have a complex system of government. You have to teach it to every generation.
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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 loved my husband very much, and it was heartbreaking to have him develop Alzheimer’s disease, and to stand by and watch him decline in his ability to take care of himself.
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[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.
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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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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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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.
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Slaying the dragon of delay is no sport for the short-winded.
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How dare you make my life a felony.
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