Robert Bork Quotes

Our greatest present disloyalty to the Constitution lies in the fact that we do not study and criticize it as did the men who devised and adopted it.

The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself and not what we have said about it.

It is time... to end the long-standing and unproductive methodological debate over 'originalism' versus 'dynamism' or 'evolution' and focus instead on how, as a substantive matter, we should interpret the Constitution in the twenty-first century, and what it has to say on questions unimaginable to our eighteenth-century Framers.

The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges’ views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice.

Do judges follow the Constitution? Well, Yes and No. They follow the Constitution as they understand it.

The real difficulty is not with the Constitution but with the judges who interpret it.

Original intent is a necessary fiction that jurists have invented to get a handle on the Constitution.

The words of the Constitution ... are so unrestricted by their intrinsic meaning or by their history or by tradition or by prior decisions that they leave the individual Justice free, if indeed they do not compel him, to gather meaning not from reading the Constitution but from reading life.

I think it is up to the judge to say what the Constitution provided, even if what it provided is not the best answer, even if you think it should be amended. If that's what it says, that's what it says.

In 'The Heritage Guide to the Constitution,' you find a most remarkable collection of scholarly work. Over a hundred people have contributed to explaining what the Constitution says, what it means, how it has been interpreted over the years, and how it is important to people today.

What secret knowledge, one must wonder, is breathed into lawyers when they become Justices of this Court that enables them to discern that a practice which the text of the Constitution does not clearly proscribe, and which our people have regarded as constitutional for 200 years, is in fact unconstitutional?

I am sworn to uphold the Constitution as Andy Johnson understands it and interprets it.

My touchstone for every question is the Constitution.

FDR's justices were allies while he was alive, but after he died, they developed four totally different theories of what the Constitution is, two of which are considered conservative and two of which are considered liberal.

My feeling is that the judge has a responsibility to the Constitution first, precedent second. Precedent is one factor. It is not the only factor. If it was the only factor, then, you know, we wouldn't have had Roe vs. Wade. We wouldn't have had Griswold. We wouldn't have had Lawrence. We wouldn't have had all these cases which the Left love.

You want to know what judicial activism is? Judicial activism is judges imposing their policy preferences on the words of the Constitution.

The judicial power of every well-constituted government must be coextensive with the legislative, and must be capable of deciding every judicial question which grows out of the Constitution and laws.

I think that he was responsible for putting the flesh and bones on the Constitution.

The (Supreme) Court has shown in the past that the Constitution can also be twisted to frustrate the needs of democracy

You’ve got to expect that there will be twists and turns [in court opinions], especially with major doctrine.

If the Constitution, as interpreted by the Court, prevents the proper solution of our social and economic problems, should we do something to the Constitution to meet the difficulty, or should we do something to the Supreme Court?

I think it makes no difference whether or not I endorse it. The Constitution is as the Supreme Court interprets it and I must conform to this and do my best to see that it is carried out in this country.

Every constitutional standard is engaged in difficult but important line-drawing.

Ours is the job of interpreting the Constitution. And that document isn't some inkblot on which litigants may project their hopes and dreams.

What many people, I think, don't really understand is how much their rights really turn on the interpretation of the Supreme Court.