Ruth Bader Ginsburg
It is not women's liberation, it is women's and men's liberation.Collection: Men
If I had any talent that God could give me, I would be a great diva.Collection: God
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.Collection: Change
I said on the equality side of it, that it is essential to a woman's equality with man that she be the decision-maker, that her choice be controlling.Collection: Equality
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.Collection: Faith
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.Collection: Legal
The state controlling a woman would mean denying her full autonomy and full equality.Collection: Equality
A gender line... helps to keep women not on a pedestal, but in a cage.Collection: Women
You can't have it all, all at once. Who - man or woman - has it all, all at once? Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all. But in different periods of time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.Collection: Time
America is known as a country that welcomes people to its shores. All kinds of people. The image of the Statue of Liberty with Emma Lazarus' famous poem. She lifts her lamp and welcomes people to the golden shore, where they will not experience prejudice because of the color of their skin, the religious faith that they follow.Collection: Famous
At my advanced age - I'm now an octogenarian - I'm constantly amazed by the number of people who want to take my picture.Collection: Age
In the course of a marriage, one accommodates the other.Collection: Marriage
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.Collection: Education
It's a facet of the gay rights movement that people don't think about enough. Why suddenly marriage equality? Because it wasn't until 1981 that the court struck down Louisiana's 'head and master rule,' that the husband was head and master of the house.Collection: Equality
We will never see a day when women of means are not able to get a safe abortion in this country.Collection: Women
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.Collection: Money
'Whole Women's Health' made it very clear that poor women were no longer going to be left out.Collection: Health
Dissents speak to a future age.Collection: Age
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.Collection: Women
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.Collection: Power
Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one's ability to persuade.Collection: Anger
My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent.Collection: Independence
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.Collection: Women
I think we understand that for the Court to work well, we have to not only respect but genuinely like each other.Collection: Respect
Justice Scalia and I served together on the D.C. Circuit. So his votes are not surprising to me. What I like about him is that he's very funny and very smart.Collection: Funny
In the '50s, too many women, even though they were very smart, they tried to make the man feel that he was brainier. It was a sad thing.Collection: Sad
Collegiality is crucial to the success of our mission. We could not do the job the Constitution assigns to us if we didn't - to use one of Justice Antonin Scalia's favorite expressions - 'Get over it!'Collection: Success
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.Collection: Experience
I think Mozart's operas 'The Marriage of Figaro' and 'Don Giovanni' are the two most perfect ever written. The music is magical.Collection: Marriage
I'm a very strong believer in listening and learning from others.Collection: Learning
Women will only have true equality when men share with them the responsibility of bringing up the next generation.Collection: Equality
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.Collection: Women
When a thoughtless or unkind word is spoken, best tune out.Collection: Best
It is not like I have gone crazy, I just don't want to take any chances. You never know what could happen.Collection: Chance
How fortunate I was to be alive and a lawyer when, for the first time in United States history, it became possible to urge, successfully, before legislatures and courts, the equal-citizenship stature of women and men as a fundamental constitutional principle.Collection: Men
If you're going to change things, you have to be with the people who hold the levers.Collection: Change
So that's the dissenter's hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow.Collection: Hope
At Columbia Law School, my professor of constitutional law and federal courts, Gerald Gunther, was determined to place me in a federal court clerkship, despite what was then viewed as a grave impediment: On graduation, I was the mother of a 4-year-old child.Collection: Graduation
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.Collection: Work
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.Collection: Faith
The concern was that if a woman was doing gender equality, her chances of making it to tenure in the law school were diminished. It was considered frivolous.Collection: Equality
I think daughters can change the perception of their fathers.Collection: Change
My law school class in the late 1950s numbered over 500. That class included less than 10 women.Collection: Women
I'm sure I've changed my mind about something. Inevitably, when we grow up - as we get more experience and wiser. Well, I've changed my mind about some food that I didn't like when I was young.Collection: Food
I do hope that some of my dissents will one day be the law.Collection: Hope
Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.
You can disagree without being disagreeable.
The emphasis must be not on the right to abortion but on the right to privacy and reproductive control.
We have the oldest written constitution still in force in the world, and it starts out with three words, 'We, the people.'
I think unconscious bias is one of the hardest things to get at.