Top 45 Sandra Day OConnor Quotes

The Establishment Clause prohibits government from making adherence to a religion relevant in any way to a person’s standing in the political community.

The power I exert on the court depends on the power of my arguments, not on my gender.

For students, understanding the separate and unique functions of each branch of government can help them understand how different kinds of government officials can help solve different kinds of problems.

Occasionally we have to interpret an international treaty – one, perhaps, affecting airlines and liability for injury to passengers or damage to goods. Then, of course, we have to look to the precedents of other member nations in resolving issues.

There was no hostility at the court when I arrived.

Commitment to the rule of law provides a basic assurance that people can know what to expect whether what they do is popular or unpopular at the time.

The abortion cases produced an enormous amount of mail to my chambers, vastly more than to the other chambers, I am sure. I sometimes thought there wasn’t a woman in the United States who didn’t write me a letter on one side or the other of that issue.

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.

I wanted to be a cattle rancher when I was young, because it was what I knew and I loved it.

My hope is that 10 years from now, after I’ve been across the street at work for a while, they’ll all be glad they gave me that wonderful vote.

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.

I think we may be seeing the beginnings of a resurgence of civic-mindedness in this country. Hopefully the younger generations, which came out in record numbers during the last presidential election, will pass their enthusiasm on to their children.

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.

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.

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. That’s set out in the Constitution.

We have a complex system of government. You have to teach it to every generation.

Half the states have stopped making civics and government a requirement for high school. Half.

The members of the court were just delighted to have a ninth member – male or female. They were all kind and welcoming.

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.

Historically courts in this country have been insulated. We do not look beyond our borders for precedents.

Having family responsibilities and concerns just has to make you a more understanding person.

I care very much about women and their progress. I didn’t go march in the streets, but when I was in the Arizona Legislature, one of the things that I did was to examine every single statute in the state of Arizona to pick out the ones that discriminated against women and get them changed.

Each of us brings to our job, whatever it is, our lifetime of experience and our values.

I think the important thing about my appointment is not that I will decide cases as a woman, but that I am a woman who will get to decide cases.

It is difficult to discern a serious threat to religious liberty from a room of silent, thoughtful schoolchildren.

We don’t accomplish anything in this world alone… and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one’s life and all the weavings of individual threads form one to another that creates something.

The destiny of the woman must be shaped to a large extent on her own conception of her spiritual imperative and her place in society.

The more education a woman has, the wider the gap between men’s and women’s earnings for the same work.

Statutes authorizing unreasonable searches were the core concern of the framers of the 4th Amendment.

I had become increasingly concerned in recent years about the lack of civics education in our nation’s schools. In recent years, the schools have stopped teaching it. And it’s unfortunate.

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.

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.

The freedom to criticize judges and other public officials is necessary to a vibrant democracy.

The No Child Left Behind Program was an incentive to the schools to get their kids up to snuff on math and science and reading.

The fact is, we are a nine-member court that sits on cases.

My concern was whether I could do the job of a justice well enough to convince the nation that my appointment was the right move.

We pay a price when we deprive children of the exposure to the values, principles, and education they need to make them good citizens.

A moment of silence is not inherently religious.

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.

If 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.

I sort of thought the framers of the Constitution were talking about the rights of individuals, not corporate entities.

I don’t know how a judge can concentrate on being fair and impartial when he or she is faced with possible jail time for making a decision that others deem incorrect.

Yes, I will bring the understanding of a woman to the Court, but I doubt that alone will affect my decisions.

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.

When I went to law school, which after all was back in the dark ages, we never looked beyond our borders for precedents. As a state court judge, it never would have occurred to me to do so, and when I got to the Supreme Court, it was very much the same. We just didn’t do it.