There are some women I definitely would not want to succeed me... but a man like David Souter, that would be great.
— Ruth Bader Ginsburg
I am fearful, or suspicious, of generalizations... They cannot guide me reliably in making decisions about particular individuals.
I thought 'Heller' was a very bad decision.
The court generally moves in small steps rather than in one giant step.
In the course of a marriage, one accommodates the other.
People who have been hardworking, tax paying, those people ought to be given an opportunity to be on a track that leads towards citizenship, and if that happened, then they wouldn't be prey to the employers who say, 'We want you because we know that you work for a salary we could not lawfully pay anyone else.'
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.'
If you're going to change things, you have to be with the people who hold the levers.
We've come a long way from the days where there was state-enforced segregation. But we still have a way to go.
We will never see a day when women of means are not able to get a safe abortion in this country.
After the pancreatic cancer, at first I went to N.I.H. every three months, then every four months, then every six months.
Anybody who has been discriminated against, who comes from a group that's been discriminated against, knows what it's like.
The Democrats do fine in presidential elections; their problem is they can't get out the vote in the midterm elections.
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.
It's hard not to have a big year at the Supreme Court.
I'm a very strong believer in listening and learning from others.
Eight, as you know, is not a good number for a multi-member court.
We still have many neighborhoods that are racially identified. We still have many schools that even though the days of state-enforced segregation are gone, segregation because of geographical boundaries remains.
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 think some of my colleagues' spicier lines are distracting. They draw attention away from what the justice is trying to say.
I really concentrate on what's on my plate at the moment and do the very best I can.
Marty was an extraordinary person. Of all the boys I had dated, he was the only one who really cared that I had a brain. And he was always - well, making me feel that I was better than I thought I was.
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.
'Whole Women's Health' made it very clear that poor women were no longer going to be left out.
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.
People who think you could wave a magic wand and the legacy of the past will be over are blind.
A judge sworn to decide impartially can offer no forecasts, no hints, for that would show not only disregard for the specifics of the particular case, it would display disdain for the entire judicial process.
Ever since my colorectal cancer in 1999, I have been followed by the N.I.H. That was very lucky for me because they detected my pancreatic cancer at a very early stage.
I was tremendously fortunate to be alive and a lawyer, working at a university so I had more flexible hours, when the women's movement was coming alive and when it became possible to argue successfully for a view of the equal protection clause that included women.
The women of my generation and my daughter's generation, they were very active in moving along the social change that would result in equal citizenship stature for men and women.
Most states in the union where the death penalty is theoretically on the books don't have executions.
I think a law clerk told me about this tumblr and also explained to me what Notorious RBG was a parody on. And now my grandchildren love it, and I try to keep abreast of the latest that's on the tumblr.
We have the oldest written constitution still in force in the world, and it starts out with three words, 'We, the people.'
I certainly respect the belief of the Hobby Lobby owners. On the other hand, they have no constitutional right to foist that belief on the hundreds and hundreds of women who work for them who don't share that belief.
Whatever final judgment awaits 'Bush v. Gore' in the annals of history, I am certain that the good work and good faith of the U.S. federal judiciary as a whole will continue to sustain public confidence at a level never beyond repair.
A gender line... helps to keep women not on a pedestal, but in a cage.
I always ask my law clerks, in addition to reading all the briefs, including all the amici briefs, that if there's a good law review article, they should bring it to me.
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.
There are some singers that know exactly when to go, and others hang on much too long and that is the same, that is the same with judges.
One aspect of appellate judging is we have to give reasons for all of our decisions. And when you sit down and try to write it out, sometimes you find that your first judgment wasn't the right one.
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.
I was the first tenured woman at Columbia. That was 1972; every law school was looking for its woman. Why? Because Stan Pottinger, who was then head of the office for civil rights of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, was enforcing the Nixon government contract program.
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.
I don't see that my majority opinions are going to be undone.
I think daughters can change the perception of their fathers.
Not a law firm in the entire city of New York bid for my employment as a lawyer when I earned my degree.
I was a proponent of the ERA.
On the whole, we think of our consumers - other judges, lawyers, the public. The law that the Supreme Court establishes is the law that they must live by, so all things considered, it's better to have it clearer than confusing.
The notion that it is improper to look beyond the borders of the United States in grappling with hard questions has a certain kinship to the view that the U.S. Constitution is a document essentially frozen in time as of the date of its ratification.
If you just needed the skills to pass the bar, two years would be enough. But if you think of law as a learned profession, then a third year is an opportunity for, on the one hand, public service and practice experience, but on the other, also to take courses that round out the law that you didn't have time to do.
