Ruth Bader Ginsburg Quotes

12 Sourced Quotes

Dissents speak to a future age. It's not simply to say, 'My colleagues are wrong and I would do it this way.' But the greatest dissents do become court opinions and gradually over time their views become the dominant view. So that's the dissenter's hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow.

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

Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Religious organizations exist to foster the interests of persons subscribing to the same religious faith. Not so of for-profit corporations. Workers who sustain the operations of those corporations commonly are not drawn from one religious community.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Neither federal nor state government acts compatibly with equal protection when a law or official policy denies to women, simply because they are women, full citizenship stature - equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in and contribute to society based on their individual talents and capacities.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg
My advice is fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg
In sum, the Court's conclusion that a constitutionally adequate recount is impractical is a prophecy the Court's own judgment will not allow to be tested. Such an untested prophecy should not decide the Presidency of the United States. I dissent.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Anger, resentment, envy and self-pity are wasteful reactions. They greatly drain one's time. They sap energy better devoted to productive endeavors.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg
An opinion of the court very often reflects views that are not 100 percent what the opinion author would do, were she writing for herself.

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
You're saying, no, State said two kinds of marriage: the full marriage, and then this sort of skim-milk marriage.

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
A prime part of the history of our Constitution is the story of the extension of constitutional rights to people once ignored or excluded.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg