Sandra Day O'Connor Quotes

The Supreme Court only hears the cases that it wants to hear.

The Supreme Court is very capable of acting quickly when it needs to.

I also believe that the Supreme Court should be the final arbiter of all federal questions.

What five members of the Supreme Court say the law is may be something vastly different from what Congress intended the law to be.

The Supreme Court does not get very reckless very often.

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.

If judicial review means anything, it is that judicial restraint does not allow everything.

Judges wear legal professionalism and precedent as a mantel that secures legitimacy for their decisions. It's how they distinguish themselves from politicians or administrative agencies, while wielding power that is sometimes much greater than those democratically accountable actors.

I am still doing my due diligence. A vote on a Supreme Court nominee is a lifetime appointment and when the court decides, it is the law of the land.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the most liberal and illumined of the nine Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.

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.

The Supreme Court is our ultimate check and balance.

We seem to grant less than half a dozen folks in black robes across the street, the right to amend [the Constitution] any time they change their mind.

The [Supreme] Court is no longer primarily a legal institution but rather a political and cultural power.

Courts cannot refuse to hear a case on the merits merely because they would prefer not to.

The [Supreme] Court did not interpret the Constitution—the court amended it.

The key to the [Supreme] court's critical constitutional role lies in the mystery of its future actions.

The Supreme Court follows the election returns.

We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is.

The Supreme Court of the United States is the tribunal to decide such questions. We [Republicans] will submit to its decisions; and if you [Democrats] do also, there will be an end of the matter.

The Supreme Court has been of all features of our Government ... the most successful

The imperial judiciary lives.

The appelate jurisdiction of the Supreme Federal Court, includes an unwarrantable stretch of power over the liberty, life, and property of the subject, through the wide Continent of America.

People expect that the law will be what the Supreme Court told them what the law was going to be.

[T]his Court may fall into error as may other branches of the Government.... The Court differs, however ... in its ability to extricate itself from error. It can reconsider.