Top 1200 Supreme Court Justice Quotes & Sayings

The most contentious Supreme Court battles are when a Republican nominates someone to replace a liberal justice.

If [a United States Supreme Court Justice is] in the doghouse with the Chief [Justice], he gets the crud. He gets the tax cases.

The president typically never does comment on anything involving the Supreme Court cases, Supreme Court ruling, or Supreme Court finding, typically.

A Supreme Court justice must convince at least four colleagues to bind the federal government nationwide, whereas a district court judge issuing a nationwide injunction needn't convince anyone.

Indeed, only one Supreme Court justice in history, one Horace Lurton, nominated by President [John] Taft, had more federal appeals court experience [than Samuel Alito].

I never pursued anything but acting. But as a kid, I was really interested in the Supreme Court. I wanted to to be a Supreme Court justice, but didn't want to be a lawyer. I just wanted to go straight to being a justice.

I respect the courts, but the Supreme Court is only that - the supreme of the courts. It is not the supreme being. It cannot overrule God. When it comes to prayer, when it comes to life, and when it comes to the sanctity of marriage, the court cannot change what God has created.

At issue here is a basic law which enables the Supreme Court to quash laws in extreme cases. Up until now, this right of the Supreme Court was not mentioned anywhere, but was just taken. At the same time, we want to enable the Knesset to overrule decisions of the Supreme Court.

I'm afraid Sadiq Khan is completely wrong. The European Court of Justice is the supreme legal authority in our country.

The American people deserve a Supreme Court justice who can demonstrate that he or she will not be beholden to the president, but only to the law.

Harriet Miers isn't qualified to play a Supreme Court justice on The West Wing , let alone to be a real one.

Our lawyers had their chat with the Supreme Court Justice, and promised to repast the chat to other members of the Supreme Court to find out whether they wanted to hear us out.

The Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal will take care of themselves. Look after the courts of the poor, who stand most in need of justice. The security of the republic will be found in the treatment of the poor and the ignorant. In indifference to their misery and helplessness lies disaster.

Reversal by a higher court is not proof that justice is thereby better done. There is no doubt that if there were a super-Supreme Court, a substantial proportion of our reversals of state courts would also be reversed. We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final.

On June 19, 1981, a vigorously healthy Justice Potter Stewart resigned from the Supreme Court at the age of 66.

In a surprising unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court ruled the police cannot search what is on your phone without a warrant. Court observers said a unanimous decision from this court was slightly less likely than Scalia winning the annual Supreme Court wet robe contest.

The Supreme Court raises the question, what kind of country will we be? The Supreme Court needs to stand on the side of the American people, not on the side of the powerful, wealthy.

This country is always changing. But my point about the Supreme Court is the Supreme Court didn't wait for the country to change. Five unelected lawyers overruled 320 million Americans.

Soon after I returned to private practice, former Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger called me one day.

When Ruth Bader Ginsburg came in front of the Senate and was approved 96-3 to be on the Supreme Court to replace conservative justice Byron White. This is in 1993.Now, Justice Ginsburg, it was noted earlier, was a general counsel for the ACLU, certainly a liberal group. It was abundantly clear during the confirmation hearing that Ginsburg would swing the balance of the court to the left.But because President [Bill] Clinton won the election and because Justice Ginsburg clearly had the intellectual ability and integrity to serve on the court, she was confirmed.

Senator, my answer is that the independence and integrity of the Supreme Court requires that nominees before this committee for a position on that court not forecast, give predictions, give hints, about how they might rule in cases that might come before the Supreme Court,.

I will say one thing has changed dramatically which is this Supreme Court vacancy, and it will reshape the race on my side, because I'd rather lose an election than lose the Supreme Court.

This [2016] election is about the people being crushed by Obamacare. And it's about defeating ISIS and appointing a Supreme Court and a Supreme Court Justice - it could be four or five - who will defend and protect our Constitution.

The notion that the Supreme Court comes up with the ruling and that automatically subjects the two other branches to following it defies everything there is about the three equal branches of government. The Supreme Court is not the supreme branch. And for God's sake, it isn't the Supreme Being. It is the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court Justice Anton Scalia should be commended for acknowledging that his views are so strong that - should the Pledge case reach the Supreme Court - he wouldn't be able to maintain the requisite impartiality.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor serves as a model Supreme Court justice, widely recognized as a jurist with practical values, a sense of the consequences of the legal decisions being made by the Supreme Court.

One of the reasons this election is so important is because the Supreme Court hangs in the balance. We need to overturn that terrible Supreme Court decision, Citizens United, and then reform our whole campaign finance system.

I wonder if there's just a sense that we have nothing to learn from any Supreme Court justice, including the great Chief Justice John Marshall.

There is no more moving a professional relationship than that between a law clerk and a Supreme Court justice. As a place to work, the court is unique in its intimacy and intensity.

Justice Ginsburg is a very competent justice, and it is a joy to have her on the court, but particularly for me it is a pleasure to have a second woman on the court.

Case of Johnson v. M'Intosh is continued to be cited today by the Supreme Court. Even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the most liberal member of the court, in footnote one of opinion she wrote several years ago involving the Oneida Nation cites the Doctrine of Discovery. The court never questions it.

An important function of the Supreme Court is to provide guidance, .. As a lower court judge, I appreciate clear guidance from the Supreme Court.

I don't know much about the Supreme Court. If it's anything like the Supreme Taco, it's like a regular court, but with extra sour cream.

We got the Supreme Court, we pressured the Supreme Court into supporting women's rights to choose.

It is a different world and they [the Supreme Court] should speak for justice, not prejudice.... I seek justice, not in some distant tomorrow, not in some study commission, but now while I Iive.

You watch the Supreme Court in action on these cases, and they are a conflicted court. However, when it comes to speech issues generally, the court has been protective.

The solicitor general is sometimes referred to as the 10th Supreme Court justice - a pretty important position.

The Supreme Court has made it nearly impossible to prove race discrimination in the criminal justice system.

Citizens United, I believe, will be regarded by history as one of the worst decisions this Supreme Court - or any Supreme Court - has ever made. It is distorting our political process and corrupting our government.

The Supreme Court would benefit from the addition of a justice who has real experience as a practicing lawyer. The current justices have all been chosen from the lower federal courts. A nominee with relevant non-judicial experience would bring a different and useful perspective to the court.

To hear both critics and defenders talk about the fitness of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, you'd think the most successful Supreme Court justices had been warm, collegial consensus-builders. But history tells a different story.

Today, it's not the same playing field as when I first became a lawyer in 1977, where the government had been restricted by our wonderful Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren's court rulings. Now it's all going the other way, the flow is against the defendant, against anything that could really help a client. But you still fight it, you do what you can do. It's all there is.

The real debate is we've had an activist court, and the American people don't want an activist court. And the real fear from those who might oppose Samuel Alito is that he'll bring the court back within a realm where the American people might want us to be with a Supreme Court; one that interprets the law, equal justice under the law, but not advancing without us advancing, the legislative body advancing, ahead of him.

The irony of the Supreme Court hearing on these cases last week and of the outright hostility that the Court has displayed against religion in recent years is that above the head of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is a concrete display of the Ten Commandments.

The Supreme Court is about the Constitution. It is about constitutionality. It is about the law. At its bear simplest, it's about the law. It is not about the Democrat Party agenda. Because that's what it's become. The whole judiciary has become that because that's the kind of people they have put on various courts as judges, and every liberal justice on the Supreme Court is a social justice warrior first and a judge of the law second. And if they get one more, then they will have effectively corrupted the Supreme Court.

Class warfare always sounds good. Taking action against the rich and the powerful and making 'em pay for what they do, it always sounds good. But that's not the job of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court standing on the side of the American people? The Supreme Court adjudicates the law. The Supreme Court determines the constitutionality of things and other things. The Supreme Court's gotten way out of focus, in my opinion.

Even the Supreme Court, back when it used to makes sense, the Supreme Court has never ruled that a baby born to illegal aliens in the US is automatically a citizen.

Well, I believe that when you are confirming a United States Supreme Court Justice, that it really isn't Democratic or Republican; it's American.

A chief justice's authority is really quite limited, and the dynamic among all the justices is going to affect whether he can accomplish much or not. There is this convention of referring to the Taney Court, the Marshall Court, the Fuller Court, but a chief justice has the same vote that everyone else has.

Sometimes Supreme Court justices surprise you with their decisions - you think they're going to vote one way, but they vote a different way, and I keep an open mind about that. But I think a moral compass is really important for a Supreme Court justice, as it is for any political appointee.

In pursuing the cherished goal of gender justice, to mention one example, the Supreme Court of India has always been proactive and progressive.

The Democrats' drive to defeat Neil Gorsuch is the latest battle in a 50-year war for control of the Supreme Court - a war that began with a conspiracy against Richard Nixon by Chief Justice Earl Warren, Justice Abe Fortas and Lyndon Johnson.

The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice.

I have lost every respect for U.S. justice. The judgment by the Supreme Court and the other, even more absurd judgment by a New York circuit court deciding that Iran should pay damages for 9/11 are the height of absurdity.

I was interested in law and wanted to be a Supreme Court judge. We see so many pending cases in India and people are not getting justice.

In fact, Native American Rights Fund has a project called the Supreme Court Project. And quite frankly, it's focused on trying to keep cases out of the Supreme Court. This Supreme Court, Justice Roberts is actually, hard to believe, was probably worse than the Rehnquist Court. If you look at the few decisions that it's issued.

I am very proud of our Supreme Court - it is one of the best worldwide. Nevertheless, since the 1990s, we have seen a certain imbalance in the relationship between the judiciary, the parliament and the government. The Supreme Court behaved in an activist way. We have to debate the degree to which such Supreme Court activism is appropriate.

Equal justice under law is not merely a caption on the facade of the Supreme Court building, it is perhaps the most inspiring ideal of our society. It is one of the ends for which our entire legal system exists...it is fundamental that justice should be the same, in substance and availability, without regard to economic status.

We need a Supreme Court justice who will restore fairness, balance, and independence to the highest level of the judiciary. Based on his record, I do not believe Gorsuch would be that kind of justice.

I used to buy into a former Supreme Court justice's argument that you can't scream fire in a crowded theater. Well, I think you can.