Ruth Bader Ginsburg Quotes - Page 2

Who will take responsibility for raising the next generation?

Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of.

I conceived of myself in large part as a teacher. There wasn't a great understanding of gender discrimination. People knew that race discrimination was an odious thing, but there were many who thought that all the gender-based differentials in the law operated benignly in women's favor. So my objective was to take the Court step by step to the realization, in Justice Brennan's words, that the pedestal on which some thought women were standing all too often turned out to be a cage.

Congress could always stop the President if Congress thinks that what the President has done exceeds the President's authority or is just wrong for the United States.

If I had any talent God could give me, I would be a great diva.

Every constitution written since the end of World War II includes a provision that men and women are citizens of equal stature. Ours does not.

There is a Constitutional right to prostitution.

A constitution, as important as it is, will mean nothing unless the people are yearning for liberty and freedom.

A prime part of the history of our Constitution is the story of the extension of constitutional rights to people once ignored or excluded.

Historically, the new government had no money to pay for an army, so they relied on the state militias. And the states required men to have certain weapons and they specified in the law what weapons these people had to keep in their home so that when they were called to do service as militiamen, they would have them. That was the entire purpose of the Second Amendment.

The state controlling a woman would mean denying her full autonomy and full equality.

So that's the dissenter's hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow.

I would not look to the United States Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012.

The Second Amendment is outdated in the sense that its function has become obsolete.

My dissenting opinions, like my briefs, are intended to persuade. And sometimes one must be forceful about saying how wrong the Court's decision is.

It's great to be in the position of asking questions and not having to answer questions.

I have yet to see a death case among the dozen coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial... People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty.

The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters.

The written argument endures. The oral argument is fleeting.

My mother told me two things constantly. One was to be a lady, and the other was to be independent. The study of law was unusual for women of my generation. For most girls growing up in the '40s, the most important degree was not your B.A., but your M.R.S.

In my view, if the Court had properly interpreted the Second Amendment, the Court would have said that Amendment was very important when the nation was new, it gave a qualified right to keep and bear arms but it was for one purpose only, and that was the purpose of having militiamen who were able to fight to preserve the nation.

Even the Declaration of Independence starts out all men are created equal, so I see my advocacy as part of an effort to make the equality principle everything the founders would have wanted it to be if they weren't held back by the society in which they lived and particularly the shame of slavery.

I do hope that some of my dissents will one day be the law.

Adult women are able to make decisions about their own lives' course no less than men are.

If I resign any time this year, he [President Obama] could not successfully appoint anyone I would like to see in the court. ... [A]nybody who thinks that if I step down, Obama could appoint someone like me, they're misguided.