Sandra Day O'Connor Quotes

The unhappy persistence of both the practice and the lingering effects of racial discrimination ...is an unfortunate reality...and the government is not disqualified from acting in response to it.

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.

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.

If you take a position under the Constitution that is against the majority view, you have to explain it well enough that maybe you can persuade some of that majority to agree with you.

I'm not on the court anymore, so no use looking for my philosophy. If somebody's waiting for that, they can wait for another justice.

I don't think it's the court's perceived role to do some explaining of a political nature.

I didn't want to be out of order answering any questions.

I think most people didn't want to do court duty.

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.

Suppose you had a cross burning in a play or a movie... Would that be intimidating?

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.

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.

[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.

I like to think that the court will continue to be held in high regard by the public. I think it should be.

It was better for me when I was joined at the court by a second woman. When I was there alone, there was too much media focus on the one woman, and the minute we got another woman, that changed.

Each justice hires their own clerks, and applications are made individually to the justices. It isn't a group decision.

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

I think it's inevitable that some of the court's decisions will be found by a segment of the public to be not the right decision or subject to criticism.

(W)e do not count heads before enforcing the First Amendment.

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

I tried to decide each case based on the law and the Constitution.

It is true that many Americans find the Commandments in accord with their personal beliefs. But we do not count heads before enforcing the First Amendment.

I need to retire from retirement.

The whole idea of a public education was to train young people about how our system of government works, so they could be good citizens and be part of it. We're not doing that today.

If a State refused to let religious groups use facilities open to others, then it would demonstrate not neutrality but hostility toward religion.

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.

I've always said that at the end of the day, on a legal issue, I think a wise old woman and a wise old man are going to reach the same conclusion.

Even in my own time and in my own life, I have witnessed a revolution.

A state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens.