Selected Quotes By Ruth Bader Ginsburg
"Judges do read the newspapers and are affected, not by the weather of the day, as distinguished constitutional law professor Paul Freund once said, but by the climate of the era."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Government
"in Frontiero v. Richardson, the Court held it unconstitutional to deny female military officers a housing allowance and medical benefits covering their husbands on the same automatic basis as those family benefits were given to married male military officers."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sex
"Once asked how we could be friends, given our disagreement on lots of things, Justice Scalia answered: 'I attack ideas. I don't attack people."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Friendship
"Less than 3 percent of positions in the federal government at and above GS-16 rank are held by women."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sex
"certain hallmarks of her legal writing and thought—her care in choosing words, her wariness of politically motivated prosecution, her concern that shortcuts in the name of efficiency often reduce effectiveness in the long run, and her unswerving commitment to individual rights and the presumption of innocence—shone through even in that first letter to her college newspaper."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Intelligence/Wisdom
"A sense of humor is helpful for those who would advance social change."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Intelligence/Wisdom
"Speak you mind even if your voice shakes."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Courage
"And I give you this picture because it fairly captures our nearly fifty-year happy marriage, during which I have offered up an astonishing number of foolish pronouncements with absolute assurance, and Ruth, with only limited rancor, has ignored almost every one."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Love
"My mother was very strong about my doing well in school and living up to my potential."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sex
"Yet, as the numbers reveal, women in law, even today, are not entering a bias-free profession."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sex
"We will all profit from a more diverse, inclusive society, understanding, accommodating, even celebrating our differences, while pulling together for the common good."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Society
"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, Government
"We should not be held back from pursuing our full talents, from contributing what we could contribute to the society, because we fit into a certain mould ― because we belong to a group that historically has been the object of discrimination."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sex
"Be independent and be a lady."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sex
"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, Freedom
"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, Anger and Fighting
"[I want to be remembered as] someone who used whatever talent she had to do her work to the very best of her ability. And to help repair tears in her society, to make things a little better through the use of whatever ability she has. To do something, as my colleague David Souter would say, outside myself. ‘Cause I’ve gotten much more satisfaction for the things that I’ve done for which I was not paid."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Goals
"Each part of my life provided respite from the other and gave me a sense of proportion that classmates trained only on law studies lacked."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Intelligence/Wisdom, Life
"If you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it. I had a life partner who thought my work was as important as his, and I think that made all the difference for me."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Love
"[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, Sex
"spent no time fretting, and found a way to do what I thought important to get done."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Goals, Time
"According to Ruth, Nabokov changed the way she read and wrote: “He used words to paint pictures. Even today, when I read, I notice with pleasure when an author has chosen a particular word, a particular place, for the picture it will convey to the reader."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Intelligence/Wisdom
"the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Freedom, Society, Government
"I became a lawyer for selfish reasons. I thought I could do a lawyer’s job better than any other."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Work
"Another often-asked question when I speak in public: “Do you have some good advice you might share with us?” Yes, I do. It comes from my savvy mother-in-law, advice she gave me on my wedding day. “In every good marriage,” she counseled, “it helps sometimes to be a little deaf.” I have followed that advice assiduously, and not only at home through fifty-six years of a marital partnership nonpareil. I have employed it as well in every workplace, including the Supreme Court of the United States. When a thoughtless or unkind word is spoken, best tune out. Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one’s ability to persuade."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anger and Fighting
"In Greek mythology, Pallas Athena was celebrated as the goddess of reason and justice.1 To end the cycle of violence that began with Agamemnon’s sacrifice of his daughter, Iphigenia, Athena created a court of justice to try Orestes, thereby installing the rule of law in lieu of the reign of vengeance.2 Recall also the biblical Deborah (from the Book of Judges).3 She was at the same time prophet, judge, and military leader. This triple-headed authority was exercised by only two other Israelites, both men: Moses and Samuel. People came from far and wide to seek Deborah’s judgment. According to the rabbis, Deborah was independently wealthy; thus she could afford to work pro bono.4 Even if its members knew nothing of Athena and Deborah, the U.S. legal establishment resisted admitting women into its ranks far too long."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sex
"I remember envying the boys long before I even knew the word feminism, because I liked shop better than cooking or sewing."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sex
"A constitution, as important as it is, will mean nothing unless the people are yearning for liberty and freedom."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Government, Freedom
"Never underestimate the power of a girl with a book."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Power, Sex, Intelligence/Wisdom
"We may be anxious to reduce crime, but we should remember that in our system of justice, the presumption of innocence is prime, and the law cannot apply one rule to Joe who is a good man, and another to John, who is a hardened criminal."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice
"For both men and women the first step in getting power is to become visible to others, and then to put on an impressive show. . . . As women achieve power, the barriers will fall. As society sees what women can do, as women see what women can do, there will be more women out there doing things, and we’ll all be better off for it."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Power, Sex, Society
"When contemplated in its extreme, almost any power looks dangerous."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Power
"The enormous difference between fighting gender discrimination as opposed to race discrimination is good people immediately perceive race discrimination as evil and intolerable. But when I talked about sex-based discrimination, I got the response, 'What are you talking about? Women are treated ever so much better than men!"
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sex
"So often in life, things that you regard as an impediment turn out to be great, good fortune."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Life, Problems, Opportunities
"Yet what greater defeat could we suffer than to come to resemble the forces we oppose in their disrespect for human dignity?"
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anger and Fighting
"My mother was very strong about my doing well in school and living up to my potential. Two things were important to her and she repeated them endlessly. One was to ‘be a lady,’ and that meant conduct yourself civilly, don’t let emotions like anger or envy get in your way. And the other was to be independent, which was an unusual message for mothers of that time to be giving their daughters."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sex, Anger and Fighting
"Women will have achieved true equality when men share with them the responsibility of bringing up the next generation."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sex
"The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When the government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a full adult human responsible for her own choices."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sex, Government
"You can disagree without being disagreeable."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anger and Fighting
"Feminism … I think the simplest explanation, and one that captures the idea, is a song that Marlo Thomas sang, 'Free to be You and Me.' Free to be, if you were a girl—doctor, lawyer, Indian chief. Anything you want to be. And if you’re a boy, and you like teaching, you like nursing, you would like to have a doll, that’s OK too. That notion that we should each be free to develop our own talents, whatever they may be, and not be held back by artificial barriers—manmade barriers, certainly not heaven sent."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sex
"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, Goals
"I don’t say women’s rights—I say the constitutional principle of the equal citizenship stature of men and women."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sex
"Reading is the key that opens doors to many good things in life. Reading shaped my dreams, and more reading helped me make my dreams come true."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Intelligence/Wisdom, Life, Goals
"Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. It shouldn't be that women are the exception."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sex
"Rabbi Alfred Bettleheim once said: “Prejudice saves us a painful trouble, the trouble of thinking."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Intelligence/Wisdom
"When a thoughtless or unkind word is spoken, best tune out. Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one’s ability to persuade."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anger and Fighting
"I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sex
"Fight for the things that you care about. But do it in a way that will lead others to join you."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Management
"My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sex
"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."