William Rehnquist Quotes

The 'wall of separation between church and state' is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.

I realize that it is an unpopular and unhumanitarian position, for which I have been excoriated by 'liberal' colleagues, but I think Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be re-affirmed.

We start with first principles. The Constitution creates a Federal Government of enumerated powers.

It is always possible for the court to overreach its proper bounds and perhaps declare a lot of laws unconstitutional and frustrate the will of the majority in a way that it ought not be frustrated.

Conservatives are those who worship dead radicals.

The Equal Rights Amendment would "turn holy wedlock into holy deadlock."

Somewhere "out there," beyond the walls of the courthouse, run currents and tides of public opinion which lap at the courtroom door.

The Constitution requires that Congress treat similarly situated persons similarly, not that it engages in gestures of superficial equality.

The "wall of separation between church and State" is a metaphor based on bad history.

The laws will not be silent in time of war but they'll speak with a somewhat different voice.

If you could say of any one individual that the court as an institution is the length and shadow of that individual, surely it would be John Marshall.

Pregnancy is of course confined to women, but it is in other ways significantly different from the typical covered disease or disability.

[I]f we assume a liberty interest but nevertheless say that, even assuming a liberty interest, a state can prohibit it entirely, that would be rather a conundrum.