Ruth Bader Ginsburg Quotations

So that's the dissenter's hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow.

The state controlling a woman would mean denying her full autonomy and full equality.

Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that changed their abortion laws before Roe are not going to change back. So we have a policy that only affects poor women, and it can never be otherwise.

Frankly, I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of.

My mother told me two things constantly. One was to be a lady and the other was to be independent, and the law was something most unusual for those times because for most girls growing up in the '40s, the most important degree was not your B.A. but your M.R.S.

You would have a huge statelessness problem if you don't consider a child born abroad a U.S. citizen.

My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent.

I said on the equality side of it, that it is essential to a woman's equality with man that she be the decision-maker, that her choice be controlling.

When police or prosecutors conceal significant exculpatory or impeaching material, we hold, it is ordinarily incumbent on the state to set the record straight.

She never envisioned a legal career for me, but she did think it was very important that I be able to support myself, and I think she would be pleased to see what has become of me.

We had to go on and do the work of the court and we did.

It is not like I have gone crazy, I just don't want to take any chances. You never know what could happen.

All respect for the office of the presidency aside, I assumed that the obvious and unadulterated decline of freedom and constitutional sovereignty, not to mention the efforts to curb the power of judicial review, spoke for itself.

Women will only have true equality when men share with them the responsibility of bringing up the next generation.

Who will take responsibility for raising the next generation?

The emphasis must be not on the right to abortion but on the right to privacy and reproductive control.

It is not women's liberation, it is women's and men's liberation.

I do hope that some of my dissents will one day be the law.

Arizona presents no specific reason for excepting capital defendants from the constitutional protections extended to defendants generally, and none is readily apparent.

I would not like to be the only woman on the court.

I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in 2012.

The age of consent for sex should be 12 years old.

Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you

Reading is the key that opens doors to many good things in life. Reading shaped my dreams, and more reading helped me make my dreams come true.

Anger, resentment, envy, and self-pity are wasteful reactions. They greatly drain one's time. They sap energy better devoted to productive endeavors.

So now the perception is, yes, women are here to stay. And when I’m sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court]? And I say when there are nine, people are shocked. But there’d been nine men, and nobody’s ever raised a question about that,

The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters.

If there was one decision I would overrule, it would be Citizens United. I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be.

We should learn ... to do our best for the sake of our communities and for the sake of those for whom we pave the way.

Dissents speak to a future age. It's not simply to say, 'My colleagues are wrong and I would do it this way.' But the greatest dissents do become court opinions and gradually over time their views become the dominant view. So that's the dissenter's hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow.

Generalizations about the "way women are" and estimates of what is appropriate for most women no longer justify denying opportunity to women whose talent and capacity place them outside the average description.

If you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it. I had a life partner who thought my work was as important as his, and I think that made all the difference for me.

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.

Women's rights are an essential part of the overall human rights agenda, trained on the equal dignity and ability to live in freedom all people should enjoy.

One might plausibly contend that Congress violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers when it exonerates itself from the impositions of the laws it obligates people outside the legislature to obey.

Feminism … I think the simplest explanation, and one that captures the idea, is a song that Marlo Thomas sang, 'Free to be You and Me.' Free to be, if you were a girl—doctor, lawyer, Indian chief. Anything you want to be. And if you’re a boy, and you like teaching, you like nursing, you would like to have a doll, that’s OK too. That notion that we should each be free to develop our own talents, whatever they may be, and not be held back by artificial barriers—manmade barriers, certainly not heaven sent.

Sometimes people say unkind or thoughtless things, and when they do, it is best to be a little hard of hearing — to tune out and not snap back in anger or impatience.

We live in an age in which the fundamental principles to which we subscribe - liberty, equality and justice for all - are encountering extraordinary challenges, ... But it is also an age in which we can join hands with others who hold to those principles and face similar challenges.

I would not look to the United States Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012.

There is a Constitutional right to prostitution.

Neither federal nor state government acts compatibly with equal protection when a law or official policy denies to women, simply because they are women, full citizenship stature - equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in and contribute to society based on their individual talents and capacities.

If we gave up our freedom as the price of security, we would no longer be the great nation that we are.

Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.

Whatever community organization, whether it's a women's organization, or fighting for racial justice ... you will get satisfaction out of doing something to give back to the community that you never get in any other way.

My mother told me two things constantly. One was to be a lady, and the other was to be independent. The study of law was unusual for women of my generation. For most girls growing up in the '40s, the most important degree was not your B.A., but your M.R.S.

A prime part of the history of our Constitution is the story of the extension of constitutional rights to people once ignored or excluded.

I have yet to see a death case among the dozen coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial... People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty.

A constitution, as important as it is, will mean nothing unless the people are yearning for liberty and freedom.

The written argument endures. The oral argument is fleeting.

In sum, the Court's conclusion that a constitutionally adequate recount is impractical is a prophecy the Court's own judgment will not allow to be tested. Such an untested prophecy should not decide the Presidency of the United States. I dissent.

The impact of all these restrictions is on poor women, because women who have means, if their state doesn't provide access, another state does. ... It makes no sense as a national policy to promote birth only among poor people.

If I had any talent God could give me, I would be a great diva

Every constitution written since the end of World War II includes a provision that men and women are citizens of equal stature. Ours does not.

...The Court ...[recognizes]...the persistence of racial inequality and a majority's acknowledgement of Congress's authority to act affirmatively, not only to end discrimination, but also to counteract discrimination's lingering effects. Those effects, reflective of a system of racial caste [legal segregation and discrimination] only recently ended, are evident in our work places, markets, and neighborhoods. Job applicants with identical resumes, qualifications, and interview styles still experience different receptions, depending on their race.

When contemplated in its extreme, almost any power looks dangerous.

I became a lawyer for selfish reasons. I thought I could do a lawyer’s job better than any other.

..the United States is subject to the scrutiny of a candid world ... what the United States does, for good or for ill, continues to be watched by the international community, in particular by organizations concerned with the advancement of the rule of law and respect for human dignity.

Prisons should be co-ed because separate quarters are discriminatory.

Promoting active liberty does not mean allowing the majority to run roughshod over minorities. It calls for taking special care that all groups have a chance to fully participate in society and the political process.

Dissents speak to a future age.

You're saying, no, state said two kinds of marriage; the full marriage, and then this sort of skim-milk marriage.

Religious organizations exist to foster the interests of persons subscribing to the same religious faith. Not so of for-profit corporations. Workers who sustain the operations of those corporations commonly are not drawn from one religious community.

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.

You can't have it all, all at once. Who—man or woman—has it all, all at once? Over my lifespan I think I have had it all. But in different periods of time things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

When I graduated from law school in 1959, there wasn't a single woman on any federal bench. It wouldn't be a realistic ambition for a woman to want to become a federal judge.

I'm not very good at promotion.

Every gal and every boy that's born alive is either a little liberal or else a little conservative.

My rule was I will not answer a question that attempts to project how I will rule in a case that might come before the court.

Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be 'perceived as favoring one religion over another,' the very 'risk the [Constitution's] Establishment Clause was designed to preclude.

I think our system is being polluted by money,

We do not read (the law) to elevate accommodation of religious observances over an institution's need to maintain order and safety, ... We have no cause to believe that (the law) would not be applied in an appropriately balanced way, without sensitivity to security concerns.

If I resign any time this year, he [President Obama] could not successfully appoint anyone I would like to see in the court. ... [A]nybody who thinks that if I step down, Obama could appoint someone like me, they're misguided.

People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty.

Members of the legislature, people who have run for office, know the connection between money and influence on what laws get passed

Racial discrimination in elections in Texas is no mere historical artifact. To the contrary, Texas has been found in violation of the Voting Rights Act in every redistricting cycle from and after 1970.

Our goal in the '70s was to end the closed door era. There were so many things that were off limits to women, policing, firefighting, mining, piloting planes. And the stereotypical view of people of a world divided between home and child caring women and men as breadwinners, men representing the family outside the home.