Ruth Bader Ginsberg Quotes

If my opinion runs more than twenty pages," she said, "I am disturbed that I couldn't do it shorter." The mantra in her chambers is "Get it right and keep it tight." She disdains legal Latin, and demands extra clarity in an opinion's opening lines, which she hopes the public will understand. "If you can say it in plain English, you should," RBG says. Going through "innumerable drafts," the goal is to write an opinion where no sentence should need to be read twice. "I think that law should be a literary profession," RBG says, "and the best legal practitioners regard law as an art as well as a craft. ~ Irin Carmon

If only the court had acted more slowly,' RBG said, and cut down one state law at a time the way she had gotten them to do with the jury and benefit cases. The justices could have been persuaded to build an architecture of women's equality that could house reproductive freedom. She said the very boldness of Roe, striking down all abortion bans until viability, had 'halted a political process that was moving in a reform direction and thereby, I believe, prolonged divisiveness and deferred stable settlement of the issue. (85). ~ Irin Carmon

Frankly, I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

He United States is subject to the scrutiny of a candid world ... what the United States does, for good or for ill, continues to be watched by the international community, in particular by organizations concerned with the advancement of the rule of law and respect for human dignity. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

All respect for the office of the presidency aside, I assumed that the obvious and unadulterated decline of freedom and constitutional sovereignty, not to mention the efforts to curb the power of judicial review, spoke for itself. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

You would have a huge statelessness problem if you don't consider a child born abroad a U.S. citizen. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

It is not like I have gone crazy, I just don't want to take any chances. You never know what could happen. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Sunday is the Academy Awards. Every time an actor says, 'I didn't expect this,' Ruth Bader Ginsburg will do a shot. ~ David Letterman

I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in 2012. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Racial discrimination in elections in Texas is no mere historical artifact. To the contrary, Texas has been found in violation of the Voting Rights Act in every redistricting cycle from and after 1970. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I do think that being the second [female Supreme Court Justice] is wonderful, because it is a sign that being a woman in a place of importance is no longer extraordinary. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The state controlling a woman would mean denying her full autonomy and full equality. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Tim Tebow has been on the bench longer than Ruth Bader Ginsburg. ~ David Letterman

My rule was I will not answer a question that attempts to project how I will rule in a case that might come before the court. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Rabbi Alfred Bettleheim once said: "Prejudice saves us a painful trouble, the trouble of thinking. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

My mother told me two things constantly. One was to be a lady and the other was to be independent, and the law was something most unusual for those times because for most girls growing up in the '40s, the most important degree was not your B.A. but your M.R.S. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

She never envisioned a legal career for me, but she did think it was very important that I be able to support myself, and I think she would be pleased to see what has become of me. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I would not look to the United States Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be 'perceived as favoring one religion over another,' the very 'risk the [Constitution's] Establishment Clause was designed to preclude. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. It shouldn't be that women are the exception. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

When I'm sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court] and I say, 'When there are nine,' people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Our goal in the '70s was to end the closed door era. There were so many things that were off limits to women, policing, firefighting, mining, piloting planes. And the stereotypical view of people of a world divided between home and child caring women and men as breadwinners, men representing the family outside the home. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

[Belva] Lockwood sought more than suffrage. She urged full political and civil rights for all women. Though she could not vote for president, she twice ran for the office herself, pointing out that nothing in the Constitution barred a woman's candidacy. (She took that bold step 124 years before Hillary Rodham Clinton first became a contender for the Democratic Party's nomination.) Explaining why she entered the race, she wrote in a letter to her future running mate, Marietta Stow: 'We shall never have equal rights until we take them, nor equal respect until we command it. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

They're not a question of additional benefits. I mean, they touch every aspect of life. Your partner is sick. Social Security. I mean, it's pervasive. It's not as though, well, there's this little Federal sphere and it's only a tax question. It's as Justice Kennedy said, 1100 statutes, and it affects every area of life. And so he was really diminishing what the State has said is marriage. You're saying, no, State said two kinds of marriage; the full marriage, and then this sort of skim milk marriage. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Women will only have true equality when men share with them the responsibility of bringing up the next generation. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I am a judge born, raised, and proud of being a Jew. The demand for justice runs through the entirety of the Jewish tradition. I hope, in my years on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, I will have the strength and the courage to remain constant in the service of that demand. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

We children of public school age can do much to aid in the promotion of peace. We must try to train ourselves and those about us to live together with one another as good neighbors for this idea is embodied in the great new Charter of the United Nations. It is the only way to secure the world against future wars and maintain an everlasting peace. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

If I had any talent God could give me, I would be a great diva ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that changed their abortion laws before Roe are not going to change back. So we have a policy that only affects poor women, and it can never be otherwise. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The emphasis must be not on the right to abortion but on the right to privacy and reproductive control. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Cushman, who assigned her to research McCarthy's assault on civil liberties, "wanted me to understand two things," Ruth recalls. "One is that we were betraying our most fundamental values, and, two, that legal skills could help make things better, could help to challenge what was going on. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Sometimes people say unkind or thoughtless things, and when they do, it is best to be a little hard of hearing - to tune out and not snap back in anger or impatience. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

How to be Like RBG:
Work for what you believe in, but pick your battles, and don't burn your bridges. Don't be afraid to take charge, think about what you want, then do the work, but then enjoy what makes you happy, bring along your crew, have a sense of humor.
-Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Notorious RBG by
Irin Carmon ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

[Ruth Bader] Ginsburg, the former women's rights advocate, made sure the nation knew she was there, even if alone. When President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress for the first time in February 2009, Ginsburg was recovering from pancreatic cancer and chemotherapy treatments, but she dragged herself to the evening event and sat with her brethren. She said she wanted to make sure that people watching the nationally televised address saw that the Supreme Court had at least one woman. ~ Joan Biskupic

If there was one decision I would overrule, it would be Citizens United. I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Be independent and be a lady. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

When contemplated in its extreme, almost any power looks dangerous. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

When Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg was before us in 1993, she said that her standard was to give no hints, no forecasts, no previews, and declined to answer dozens of questions. ~ Orrin Hatch

Women's rights are an essential part of the overall human rights agenda, trained on the equal dignity and ability to live in freedom all people should enjoy. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

It is not women's liberation, it is women's and men's liberation. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Members of the legislature, people who have run for office, know the connection between money and influence on what laws get passed ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg