Ruth Bader Ginsburg Quotes

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.

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

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

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.

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

One thing that concerns me is that today's young women don't seem to care that we have a fundamental instrument of government that makes no express statement about the equal citizenship stature of men and women. They know there are no closed doors anymore, and they may take for granted the rights that they have.

Work hard on each opinion, but once the case is decided, don't look back; go on to the next case and give it your all. It's not productive to worry about what's out and released, over and done. That's advice I now give to people new to the judging business.

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

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.

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

The Second Amendment is outdated in the sense that its function has become obsolete.

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.

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.

The written argument endures. The oral argument is fleeting.

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.

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

My own view, and I've said this many times, is as long as I can do the work full steam, I will stay on the Court. But when I feel myself slipping, when I slow down in my ability to write opinions with fair dispatch, when I forget the names of cases that I once could recite at the drop of a hat, I will know it is time for me to go.

..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.

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

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

I didn't change the Constitution; the equality principle was there from the start. I just was an advocate for seeing its full realization.

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

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.

If you ask judges, do you always agree on everything? Of course not, we divide just as you do. Why aren't you transparent about it? Because the people would begin to think that the law is not stable, the law is unclear. And that would not give them much faith in the law.

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.

In most civil law systems there are no dissents. There is a single opinion for the court: it is unanimous; it is highly stylized; you can't tell which judge wrote it.

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.

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

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

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.

...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.

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

People who have been hardworking, tax paying, those people ought to be given an opportunity to be on a track that leads towards citizenship and if that happened, then they wouldn't be prey to the employers who say we want you because we know that you work for a salary we could not lawfully pay anyone else.

Dissents speak to a future age.

Legislators know much more about elections than the Court does.

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

Work for the things that you care about.

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.

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.

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.

There are just a host of problems born by the electronic age. Things we couldn't even conceive of. I was amused by the analogy that Justice Scalia made in a case about a GPS tracker so you don't know that's being done to your car, is that a violation of your right to protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. So Justice Scalia imagines a constable clinging to the bottom of a carriage as it went on its way, so there was some notion that this similar: there is an official eye that's on you, but you don't know about it. Yes, there are all kinds of challenges.

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.

There are some singers that know exactly when to go, and others hang on much too long and that is the same, that is the same with judges.

In my view, if the Court had properly interpreted the Second Amendment, the Court would have said that Amendment was very important when the nation was new, it gave a qualified right to keep and bear arms but it was for one purpose only, and that was the purpose of having militiamen who were able to fight to preserve the nation.

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

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.

The Second Amendment has a preamble about the need for a militia. Because there is a need for a militia to be at the ready, therefore the right to keep and bear arms must be secured.

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.