Millions of people toil in the shadow of the law we make, and much of their livelihood is made possible by the existence of intellectual property rights.

It's not that unusual for presidents to take strong positions on cases decided by the court. But you know, Lesley, that's why the Constitution wisely gave us life tenure. They can talk about us, but they can't remove us.

I was born under Communism. I know what it's like to live in a system where you can't speak, you have to whisper. Where the state is so pervasive and so intrusive.

I think the use of lethal injection is the way of lying to ourselves, to make it look like executions are peaceful, are benign, are sort of like going to sleep, and they're not. They're brutal things.

The more heavily the government regulates the market, the more competition is impeded.

This is really a pretty good system you have here. What do you call it? "Due process". We're very proud of it.

In a very real sense, the Constitution is our compact with history . . . [but] the Constitution can maintain that compact and serve as the lodestar of our political system only if its terms are binding on us. To the extent we depart from the document's language and rely instead on generalities that we see written between the lines, we rob the Constitution of its binding force and give free reign to the fashions and passions of the day.