Antonin Scalia Quotes

It is difficult to maintain the illusion that we are interpreting a Constitution, rather than inventing one.

What is a moderate interpretation of the text? Halfway between what it really means and what you'd like it to mean?

A Bill of Rights that means what the majority wants it to mean is worthless.

If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?

Day by day, case by case, the Supreme Court is busy designing a Constitution for a country I do not recognize.

Devout Christians are destined to be regarded as fools in modern society. We are fools for Christ's sake. We must pray for courage to endure the scorn of the sophisticated world.

I even accept for the sake of argument that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged.

In a big family the first child is kind of like the first pancake. If it's not perfect, that's okay, there are a lot more coming along.

For in order for capitalism to work -- in order for it to produce a good and a stable society -- the traditional Christian virtues are essential.

In the eyes of government we are just one race here. It is American.

One can be sophisticated and believe in God. Reason and intellect are not to be laid aside where matters of religion are concerned.

Words have meaning. And their meaning doesn't change.

Campaign promises are - by long democratic tradition - the least binding form of human commitment.

The right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children is among the unalienable rights with which the Declaration of Independence proclaims 'all Men are endowed by their Creator.'

This is an execution, not surgery. Where does that come from, that you must find the method of execution that causes the least pain?

Interior decorating is a rock-hard science compared to psychology practiced by amateurs.

There is nothing new in the realization that the Constitution sometimes insulates the criminality of a few in order to protect the privacy of us all.

The attitude of people associating guns with nothing but crime, that is what has to be changed. I grew up at a time when people were not afraid of people with firearms.

But I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not on the streets of our cities.

To many Americans, everything from the Easter morning to the Ascension had to be made up by the groveling enthusiasts as part of their plan to get themselves martyred.

Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is "established by the State".

If it were up to me, I would put in jail every sandal-wearing, scruffy-bearded weirdo who burns the American flag. But I am not king.

A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable.

This is so absurd that it has, to my knowledge, never been contemplated.

The court's job is to uphold the Constitution and you don't call that off in times of crisis. Would the framers have allowed this practice?

Why in the world would you have it interpreted by nine lawyers?

The wise do not investigate such silliness.

Certainly one cannot ban cross burning in the sanctity of his bedroom.

To be honest about it, that is the view of Christians taken by modern society. Surely those who adhere to all or most of these traditional Christian beliefs are to be regarded as simpleminded.

People look at rights as if they were muscles — the more you exercise them, the better they get.

It would be gross understatement to say that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 is not a model of clarity. It is in many important respects a model of ambiguity or indeed even self-contradiction.

A journalistic purpose could be someone with a Xerox machine in a basement.

A law can be both economic folly and constitutional.

The Constitution does not trust judges to make determinations of criminal guilt.

It's a long, uphill fight to get back to original orthodoxy. We have two 'originalists' on the Supreme Court. That's something.

[The Freedom of Information Act is] the Taj Mahal of the Doctrine of Unanticipated Consequences, the Sistine Chapel of Cost-Benefit Analysis Ignored.

Rather than rewriting the law under the pretense of interpreting it, the Court should have left it to Congress to decide what to do about the Act's limitation of tax credits to state Exchanges.

You could have 50 different states having 50 different regulations... until they were all litigated out.

Why can't the state accede to the public's wishes?

[If critics of the Pledge of Allegiance persuaded the public it should be changed] then we could eliminate under God from the Pledge of Allegiance, that could be democratically done.

The principal purpose of stare decisis is to protect reliance interest and further stability in the law.

It is not rational, never mind 'appropriate, ' to impose billions of dollars in economic costs in return for a few dollars in health or environmental benefits.

The court makes an amazing amount of decisions that ought to be made by the people.

Being a good person begins with being a wise person. Then, when you follow your conscience, will you be headed in the right direction.

There exists in some parts of the world sanctimonious criticism of America's death penalty, as somehow unworthy of a civilized society.

The main business of a lawyer is to take the romance, the mystery, the irony, the ambiguity out of everything he touches.

It is myopic to base sweeping change on the narrow experience of a few years.

A written constitution is needed to protect values AGAINST prevailing wisdom.