Top 100 Court Justice Quotes
#1. Jefferson found in the religion phrases of the First Amendment no vague or fuzzy language to be bent or shaped or twisted as suited any Supreme Court Justice or White House incumbent. That amendment had built a wall, with the ecclesiastical estate on one side and the civil estate on the other.
Edwin Gaustad
#2. Supreme Court Justice Anton Scalia should be commended for acknowledging that his views are so strong that - should the Pledge case reach the Supreme Court - he wouldn't be able to maintain the requisite impartiality.
Michael Newdow
#3. I was interested in politics very much when I was growing up, and that's what I think I really wanted to be - either a senator, or a Supreme Court Justice, and I always wanted to be a lawyer.
Michael Riedel
#4. If torture is going to be administered as a last resort in the ticking-bomb case, to save enormous numbers of lives, it ought to be done openly, with accountability, with approval by the president of the United States or by a Supreme Court justice.
Alan Dershowitz
#5. Harriet Miers isn't qualified to play a Supreme Court justice on The West Wing , let alone to be a real one.
Ann Coulter
#6. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg fell asleep during Obama's speech. She woke up with the other justices drawing a gavel on her face.
Conan O'Brien
#7. What Mr. Obama wants in a nominee isn't really 'empathy' and 'understanding.' He wants a liberal, activist Supreme Court justice.
Karl Rove
#8. Doesn't anyone wonder why the NAACP does not have events celebrating the first black woman secretary of state?.. Why does an organization whose mission is to advance the lot of blacks not celebrate Clarence Thomas, our black Supreme Court justice?
Star Parker
#9. Judicial excellence means that a Supreme Court justice must have a sense of the values from which our core of our political- economic system goes. In other words, we should not approve any nominee whose extreme judicial philosophy would undermine rights and liberties relied upon by all Americans.
Herb Kohl
#10. I wonder if there's just a sense that we have nothing to learn from any Supreme Court justice, including the great Chief Justice John Marshall.
Dahlia Lithwick
#11. I do think that being the second [female Supreme Court Justice] is wonderful, because it is a sign that being a woman in a place of importance is no longer extraordinary.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
#12. We've got another nominee coming up, well qualified, Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owens has a tremendous reputation, tremendous record, but they are already marshalling their forces to try to stop that nomination.
Jay Alan Sekulow
#13. Best thunderclap came from Spengler, to the effect that science is either true or false, art is either shallow or deep. Second best came from some Supreme Court Justice, Jackson, I think, to the effect that one man's right to swing his fists stops where another man's nose begins.
Kurt Vonnegut
#14. Indeed, only one Supreme Court justice in history, one Horace Lurton, nominated by President [John] Taft, had more federal appeals court experience [than Samuel Alito].
Jon Kyl
#15. The appointment of the next Supreme Court justice must be made in the people's interest and in the nation's interest, not in the interest of any partisan faction.
Patrick Leahy
#16. I used to buy into a former Supreme Court justice's argument that you can't scream fire in a crowded theater. Well, I think you can.
Larry Flynt
#17. Any successful nominee should possess both the temperament to interpret the law and the wisdom to do so fairly. The next Supreme Court Justice should have a record of protecting individual rights and a strong willingness to put aside any political agenda.
Bennie Thompson
#18. Given her lack of experience, does anyone doubt that Ms. Miers's only qualification to be a Supreme Court justice is her close connection to the president? Would the president have ever picked her if she had not been his lawyer, his close confidante, and his adviser?
Randy Barnett
#19. I realized that people had an unreal image of me, that somehow I was a god on Mount Olympus. I decided that if I were going to make use of my role as a Supreme Court Justice, it would be to inspire people to realize that, first, I was just like them and second, if I could do it, so could they.
Sonia Sotomayor
#20. If [a United States Supreme Court Justice is] in the doghouse with the Chief [Justice], he gets the crud. He gets the tax cases.
Harry A. Blackmun
#21. As the familiar quote usually attributed to Supreme Court justice Louis D. Brandeis goes, We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.
Jaron Lanier
#22. We made history when President Obama appointed Sonia Sotomayor, a proud Latina, the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice. And as the President likes to say, 'Every single one of them wasn't just the best Latino for the job, but the best person for the job.'
Charlie Gonzalez
#23. When you have incidences like the Trayvon Martin verdict, the erosion of certain fundamental rights like voting, it just reminds us that we're always one Supreme Court justice vote away from losing the progress that has been made.
Terri Sewell
#24. The solicitor general is sometimes referred to as the 10th Supreme Court justice - a pretty important position.
Arlen Specter
#25. Finally, a good prosecutor knows that her job is to enforce the law without fear or favor. Likewise, a Supreme Court Justice must interpret the laws without fear or favor.
Amy Klobuchar
#26. The American people deserve a Supreme Court justice who can demonstrate that he or she will not be beholden to the president, but only to the law.
Patrick Leahy
#27. Well, I believe that when you are confirming a United States Supreme Court Justice, that it really isn't Democratic or Republican; it's American.
Arlen Specter
#28. I never pursued anything but acting. But as a kid, I was really interested in the Supreme Court. I wanted to to be a Supreme Court justice, but didn't want to be a lawyer. I just wanted to go straight to being a justice.
Gillian Jacobs
#29. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor serves as a model Supreme Court justice, widely recognized as a jurist with practical values, a sense of the consequences of the legal decisions being made by the Supreme Court.
Patrick Leahy
#30. There is no more moving a professional relationship than that between a law clerk and a Supreme Court justice. As a place to work, the court is unique in its intimacy and intensity.
Cliff Sloan
#31. Our lawyers had their chat with the Supreme Court Justice, and promised to repast the chat to other members of the Supreme Court to find out whether they wanted to hear us out.
Dashiell Hammett
#32. She [Justice Sandra Day O'Connor], unlike, Judge Bork, did not think that being on the court would be an "intellectual feast," to quote Judge [Robert Heron] Bork.
Joe Biden
#33. If we fulfill our responsibility to the Constitution, the Supreme Court will be filled with superior legal minds who will pursue the one agenda that our founding fathers intended in writing the Constitution: justice, rather than political or personal goals.
Chuck Grassley
#34. Justice Ginsburg is a very competent justice, and it is a joy to have her on the court, but particularly for me it is a pleasure to have a second woman on the court.
Sandra Day O'Connor
#36. Justice Harry A. Blackmun, a quirky but pivotal member of the Supreme Court for 24 years, was a hoarder. He seems to have kept everything from his boyhood diaries to college correspondence to every scrap of paper that came his way on the Supreme Court.
Cliff Sloan
#37. One can only imagine how effective justice might be if admissible in a court of law.
Robert Breault
#39. In this court the parties changed positions as nimbly as if dancing a quadrille.
Robert H. Jackson
#40. I am a judge born, raised, and proud of being a Jew. The demand for justice runs through the entirety of the Jewish tradition. I hope, in my years on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, I will have the strength and the courage to remain constant in the service of that demand.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
#41. Tooter had gone back to court to testify in Billy's murder trial. The Leavenworth justice system had been a travesty for as long as I could remember, and the term "old boy network" was alive and well there.
Thomas M. Sartain
#42. I deeply regret the damage my original case caused women. I want the Supreme Court to examine the evidence and have a spirit of justice for women and children.
Norma McCorvey
#44. We sought justice because equal pay for equal work is an American value. That fight took me ten years. It took me all the way to the Supreme Court. And, in a 5-4 decision, they stood on the side of those who shortchanged my pay, my overtime, and my retirement just because I am a woman.
Lilly Ledbetter
#45. We give Supreme Court justices this freedom because we expect them to remain above the pull of politics, to avoid the effects of public excitement and allow a broader view, not tied to the whims of the majority at a certain moment in history.
Herb Kohl
#46. I'm convinced that our duty to provide advice and consent for justices of the Supreme Court is our most important constitutional responsibility.
Frank Lautenberg
#47. I was a chief justice. And before that, I was a district court judge, handled major felonies, including capital murder cases; and I handled major civil litigation.
Louie Gohmert
#48. My job is to interpret the law based on how the legislature and the court has done it and then, of course, to use our system of justice to develop some new legal tools and new concepts.
Bill Scott
#49. Since Vice President Al Gore is constantly making things up, it should come as no surprise that he wants Supreme Court justices who will do the same. As Gore put it, he will appoint judges who view the Constitution as a 'document that grows'.
Ann Coulter
#50. Tom Jr. was steeped in Free Soil politics and was now chief justice of the Kansas State Supreme Court.
Robert L. O'Connell
#51. The justice system in the West has a lot of problems," Poe said, "but at least there are rules. You have basic rights as the accused. You have your day in court. You don't have any rights when you're accused on the Internet. And the consequences are worse. It's worldwide forever.
Jon Ronson
#52. On June 19, 1981, a vigorously healthy Justice Potter Stewart resigned from the Supreme Court at the age of 66.
Elliott Abrams
#53. A plaintiff who comes into a Court of justice must show that he is in a condition to maintain his action.
Sherrilyn Kenyon
#54. The human element in any system is always prone to error. Why should the courts be any different? They are not. Our blind trust in the system is the product of ignorance ...
William Landay
#55. I am deeply honored to have been nominated for a position on the Supreme Court. And I an humbled to have been nominated for the seat that is now held by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
Samuel Alito
#56. An assembly of the states, a court of justice, shows nothing so serious and grave as a table of gamesters playing very high; a melancholy solicitude clouds their looks; envy and rancor agitate their minds while the meeting lasts, without regard to friendship, alliances, birth or distinctions.
Jean De La Bruyere
#57. He was a lifelong Republican, but over the years, Harry Blackmun built a reputation as a liberal, sometimes defiant Justice, whose fierce protection of individual rights led some to anoint him the moral conscience of the court.
Judy Woodruff
#58. I hope his wife feeds him [Clarence Thomas, Justice, U.S. Supreme Court] lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease ... He is an absolutely reprehensible person.
Julianne Malveaux
#59. Then Mr. Underwood's meaning became clear: Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men's hearts Atticus had no case.
Harper Lee
#60. Soon after I returned to private practice, former Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger called me one day.
Fred F. Fielding
#61. There's a principle here, and I'm hoping the court will uphold this principle so that we can finally go back and have every American want to stand up, face the flag, place their hand over their heart and pledge to one nation, indivisible, not divided by religion, with liberty and justice for all.
Michael Newdow
#62. History has shown that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg did, in fact, dramatically change the balance of the court in many critical areas, such as abortion, the privacy debate expansion and child pornography.
Sam Brownback
#63. We want a Supreme Court which will do justice under the Constitution - not over it. In our courts we want a government of laws and not of men.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
#64. America acknowledged the greatness of Confucius through a trio of ancient lawgivers - Moses flanked by Confucius to his right and Solon on his left - on the monument to "Justice, the Guardian of Liberty" displayed on the eastern pediment of the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C.
Patrick Mendis
#65. Will a nominee embrace and uphold the essential meaning of the four words inscribed above the entrance of the Supreme Court building: Equal justice under law?
Edward Kennedy
#66. If confirmed, Judge [Samuel] Alito could serve on the court for generation or more. And the decisions he will make as justice will have a direct impact on the lives and liberties of our children, our grandchildren, and even our great-grandchildren.
Edward Kennedy
#67. Got good news and bad news for you, Mr. President. The good news is that Chief Justice John Roberts just saved your legacy and, perhaps, your presidency by writing for the Supreme Court majority to rule health care reform constitutional.
Ron Fournier
#68. Courts of equity make their decrees so as to arrive at the justice of the case without violating the rules of law.
Sherrilyn Kenyon
#69. We pay a lot for our court service, but it's not enough. Courts are under-resourced, which leads to delayed justice - particularly in criminal courts.
Heather Brooke
#70. Son, when I appoint a nigger to the bench, I want everybody to know he's a nigger. [Said to an aide in 1965 regarding the appointment of Thurgood Marshall as associate justice of the Supreme Court]
Lyndon B. Johnson
#71. I stated at Justice [John] Roberts' hearing, the court's injected itself into many of the political debates of our day.
Sam Brownback
#72. All the figures who upheld and defended American slavery - Senators John C. Calhoun and Stephen Douglas, President James Buchanan, Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, architect of the Dred Scott decision, and the main leaders of the Confederacy - were Democrats.
Dinesh D'Souza
#73. The United States has held out against taking part in any of the world consensus that there should be a court of human rights or that there should be an international court of criminal justice.
Roger Waters
#74. The people of Ohio are not happy with what he's doing. I can tell you that. They're not happy with what [John Kasich] is doing. But the Republican Party more than any other thing has to have a victory, a presidential victory, for one thing, if nothing else: Supreme Court justices.
Donald Trump
#75. Justice [Sandra Day] O'Connor also brought balance to our highest court; most recently, as been repeated many times, when she cautioned about how war doesn't give a blank check.
Joe Biden
#76. When I walk into court, I'm not concerned about justice, the rule of law, or making sure it's a fair fight. Fuck fair. I'm there to protect my client. That's where my duty begins and ends. But
Marcia Clark
#77. No international court can ever substitute for a working national justice system. Or for a society at peace.
Adam Hochschild
#78. The only relevant side is that of the law and the Constitution. We do great injury to the integrity of the court system when we start speaking of sides and stop devoting ourselves to the pursuit of impartial justice.
Jon Kyl
#79. It's now up to the full Senate to move swiftly to confirm John Roberts so he can assume his duties and responsibilities as chief justice when the Supreme Court begins its new term in a matter of weeks. We call on the Senate to confirm John Roberts without delay.
Jay Alan Sekulow
#80. The Supreme Court would benefit from the addition of a justice who has real experience as a practicing lawyer. The current justices have all been chosen from the lower federal courts. A nominee with relevant non-judicial experience would bring a different and useful perspective to the court.
Harry Reid
#81. I write to withdraw as a nominee to serve as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States ... I am concerned that the confirmation process presents a burden for the White House and our staff that is not in the best interest of the country.
Harriet Miers
#82. If you want the best evidence of just how strong our democracy is, come into the courtroom.
Michael Ponsor
#83. It is profoundly troubling when you have Supreme Court justices not following their judicial oath. And taking the role of policy makers and legislators, rather than being judges.
Ted Cruz
#84. When I worked in the Department of Justice, in the office of the solicitor general, it was my job to argue cases for the United States before the Supreme court. I always found it very moving to stand before the justices and say, 'I speak for my country.'
John Roberts
#85. The family is a court of justice which never shuts down for night or day.
Malcolm De Chazal
#86. Dumbfounded, I stood before the court, trying to figure out if there was a state of being between "guilty" and "innocent." Why were those my only alternatives? I thought. Why couldn't I be "neither" or "both"? After a long pause, I finally faced the bench and said, "Your Honor, I plead human.
Paul Beatty
#87. The court is the bureaucracy of the law. If you bureaucratise popular justice then you give it the form of a court.
Michel Foucault
#88. You know, it shows how old I am. I can remember the good old days when the president picked the Supreme Court justices instead of the other way around.
Jay Leno
#89. Some lawyers and judges may have forgotten it, but the purpose of the court system is to produce justice, not slavish obedience to the law.
Charley Reese
#90. Keeping all things in their places. Everybody was dressed for a Fancy Ball that was never to leave off. From the Palace of the Tuileries, through Monseigneur and the whole Court, through the Chambers, the Tribunals of Justice, and all society (except the scarecrows),
Charles Dickens
#91. Charles Evans Hughes, former Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, said: "Men do not die from overwork. They die from dissipation and worry." Yes, from dissipation of their energies - and worry because they never seem to get their work done.
Dale Carnegie
#92. He knew that justice was rarely dispensed within the four walls of the courtroom.
Kenneth Eade
#94. It's a very insular political community up there. I think the court's part of that and they're protecting their own. There's no justice in Vermont today.
Tom Fitton
#95. It is a rule that those who come into a Court of justice to seek redress, must come with clean hands, and must disclose a transaction warranted by law.
Sherrilyn Kenyon
#96. The death of chief justice Rehnquist and the president's nomination of John Roberts raises the stakes for the court and the American people exponentially.
Ralph G. Neas
#97. There is no such thing as justice - in or out of court.
Clarence Darrow
#98. There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts.
Mahatma Gandhi
#99. For a justice of this ultimate tribunal [the U.S. Supreme Court], the opportunity for self-discovery and the occasion for self-revelation is great.
Abe Fortas
#100. I am ready to face the International Criminal Court of Justice at the Hague for prosecution over roles played by me when the war ended
Yakubu Gowon
