Sandra Day O'Connor Quotes

I'm duty-bound to follow the law and apply to the law to the facts as I find them.

If I am going to pick and choose the laws I defend, I wouldn't be doing my duty as attorney general.

I well understand that the role of Attorney General is to enforce the law as it is, not as I would have it.

I don’t like the death penalty but it was the law in Ohio. Therefore as a prosecutor I sought the death penalty and as a judge I imposed the death penalty. It was the law and you have to obey the law.

Every American has the duty to obey the law and the right to expect that the law will be enforced.

My responsibility is to follow the law.

As attorney general, I don't get to pick and choose the laws I like and don't like.

What's stronger-the need to uphold the law, or the motive to turn one's back on it?

Tell me a way you think this can work." "We'll find a way," I tell her. "That's not an answer. It's a hope." "Hope's gotten us this far. Not answers.

One thing is clear, everyone, no matter what their professional or material status, no matter what their influence on various state structures, must obey the law.

What is law? Is it what is on the books, or what is actually enacted and obeyed in a society? Or is law what must be enacted and obeyed, whether or not it is on the books, if things are to go right?

The law is hard but it is the law.

It is not the purpose of a juryman's office to give justice as a favor to whoever seems good to him, but to judge according to law, and this he has sworn to do.

A man can give up a right, but he may not give up a duty without being guilty of a grave dereliction.

I think, the argument sometimes that I've had with folks who are much more interested in sort of race-specific programs is less an argument about what is practically achievable and sometimes maybe more an argument of "We want society to see what's happened, and internalize it, and answer it in demonstrable ways." And those impulses I very much understand.

If it were to be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws - the first growing out of the last . . . . A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.

One of the things with our show is posing a lot of questions, but getting a lot of answers too.

There are lots of questions which have to be answered.

It would not be correct to say that every moral obligation involves a legal duty; but every legal duty is founded on a moral obligation.

Respect for the law must be the basis for all legal action.

Everyone must be equal before the law, abide by it, pay their taxes and bear the punishment should they break the law.

What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws.

the point is that there are always answers.

The answer to violence is even more democracy, even more humanity...

I know chances are if I don't give an interview or make a public appearance or statement from time to time, they'll invent one. Every so often, I suppose people ask, 'Whatever happened to that other Beatle, George Harrison?' And someone comes around with a ready answer, no matter how preposterous it seems. It's possibly the worst price one has to pay for what they call stardom.