Top 205 Quotes & Sayings by Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
The worst times were the years I was alone. The image to the public entering the courtroom was eight men, of a certain size, and then this little woman sitting to the side. That was not a good image for the public to see.
Collegiality is crucial to the success of our mission. We could not do the job the Constitution assigns to us if we didn't - to use one of Justice Antonin Scalia's favorite expressions - 'Get over it!'
We have the oldest written constitution still in force in the world, and it starts out with three words, 'We, the people.'
When a thoughtless or unkind word is spoken, best tune out.
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.
I'm a very strong believer in listening and learning from others.
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.
A gender line... helps to keep women not on a pedestal, but in a cage.
I think daughters can change the perception of their fathers.
In the course of a marriage, one accommodates the other.
It's a facet of the gay rights movement that people don't think about enough. Why suddenly marriage equality? Because it wasn't until 1981 that the court struck down Louisiana's 'head and master rule,' that the husband was head and master of the house.
The emphasis must be not on the right to abortion but on the right to privacy and reproductive control.
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.'
Anybody who has been discriminated against, who comes from a group that's been discriminated against, knows what it's like.
All I can say is I am sensitive to discrimination on any basis because I have experienced that upset.
At Cornell University, my professor of European literature, Vladimir Nabokov, changed the way I read and the way I write. Words could paint pictures, I learned from him. Choosing the right word, and the right word order, he illustrated, could make an enormous difference in conveying an image or an idea.
I was a proponent of the ERA.
I do a variety of weight-lifting, elliptical glider, stretching exercises, push-ups. And I do the Canadian Air Force exercises almost every day.
I try to teach through my opinions, through my speeches, how wrong it is to judge people on the basis of what they look like, color of their skin, whether they're men or women.
It is not women's liberation, it is women's and men's liberation.
Contraceptive protection is something every woman must have access to, to control her own destiny.
I always thought that there was nothing an antifeminist would want more than to have women only in women's organizations, in their own little corner empathizing with each other and not touching a man's world.
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.
You can disagree without being disagreeable.
Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one's ability to persuade.
My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent.
When I was growing up, there were no women in orchestras. Auditioners thought they could tell the difference between a woman playing and a man. Some intelligent person devised a simple solution: Drop a curtain between the auditioners and the people trying out. And, lo and behold, women began to get jobs in symphony orchestras.
If I had any talent that God could give me, I would be a great diva.
We've come a long way from the days where there was state-enforced segregation. But we still have a way to go.
Not a law firm in the entire city of New York bid for my employment as a lawyer when I earned my degree.
I've had two cancer bouts in my years on the Court, and the first one, Justice O'Connor told me, 'Now, you do the chemotherapy on Friday because you'll get over it during the weekend and you can be back in court on Monday.'
The Sixth Amendment secures to persons charged with crime the right to be tried by an impartial jury reflecting a fair cross-section of the community.
I am fearful, or suspicious, of generalizations... They cannot guide me reliably in making decisions about particular individuals.
People who think you could wave a magic wand and the legacy of the past will be over are blind.
If you're going to change things, you have to be with the people who hold the levers.
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.
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.
So that's the dissenter's hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow.
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.
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 court generally moves in small steps rather than in one giant step.
Remember that before 'Roe v. Wade' was decided, there were four states that allowed abortion in the first trimester if that's what the woman sought: New York, Hawaii, California, Alaska. Other states were shifting. And people were fighting over this issue in state legislatures.
Undocumented aliens unfortunately are not protected by the law, and they are tremendously subjected to exploitation. The result is that they would be willing to work for a wage that no person who is welcome in our shores would take.
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.
Women will only have true equality when men share with them the responsibility of bringing up the next generation.
I think unconscious bias is one of the hardest things to get at.
If you want to influence people, you want them to accept your suggestions, you don't say, 'You don't know how to use the English language,' or 'How could you make that argument?' It will be welcomed much more if you have a gentle touch than if you are aggressive.
My law school class in the late 1950s numbered over 500. That class included less than 10 women.
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.
Who will take responsibility for raising the next generation?
At my advanced age - I'm now an octogenarian - I'm constantly amazed by the number of people who want to take my picture.
Dissents speak to a future age.
You can't have it all all at once. Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all, but in given periods in time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.
America is known as a country that welcomes people to its shores. All kinds of people. The image of the Statue of Liberty with Emma Lazarus' famous poem. She lifts her lamp and welcomes people to the golden shore, where they will not experience prejudice because of the color of their skin, the religious faith that they follow.
The label 'liberal' or 'conservative,' any - every time I hear that, I think of the great Gilbert and Sullivan song from 'Iolanthe.' It goes, 'Every gal and every boy that's born alive is either a little liberal or else a little conservative.' What do those labels mean? It depends on whose ox is being gored.
Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.
The state controlling a woman would mean denying her full autonomy and full equality.
An operatic voice is like no other.
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.
How fortunate I was to be alive and a lawyer when, for the first time in United States history, it became possible to urge, successfully, before legislatures and courts, the equal-citizenship stature of women and men as a fundamental constitutional principle.
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