I have great respect for our public officials. After all, they speak for the people and that commands a certain degree of humility from those of us in the judicial branch who do not. We do not speak for the people, but we speak for the Constitution. Our role is very clear. We are to interpret the laws and Constitution of the United States and ensure that the political branches act within them.

John Roberts

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If the Constitution says that the little guy should win, the little guy is going to win in court before me, ... But if the Constitution says that the big guy should win, well, then the big guy is going to win because my obligation is to the Constitution.

John Roberts

guy winning littles

The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.

John Roberts

politics race way

By ensuring that no one in government has too much power, the Constitution helps protect ordinary Americans every day against abuse of power by those in authority.

John Roberts

abuse government ordinary

I find that when I tell lawyer jokes to a mixed audience, the lawyers don't think they're funny and the non-lawyers don't think they're jokes.

John Roberts

audience lawyer thinking

I think judicial temperament is a willingness to step back from your own committed views of the correct jurisprudential approach and evaluate those views in terms of your role as a judge. It's the difference between being a judge and being a law professor.

John Roberts

views law thinking

The States are separate and independent sovereigns. Sometimes they need to act like it.

John Roberts

independent sometimes needs

Trivial facts are often the best hints to what is going on.

John Roberts

hints society facts

Global warming may be a 'crisis,' even 'the most pressing environmental problem of our time.' ... Indeed, it may ultimately affect nearly everyone on the planet in some potentially adverse way, and it may be that governments have done too little to address it. It is not a problem, however, that has escaped the attention of policymakers in the Executive and Legislative Branches of our Government, who continue to consider regulatory, legislative, and treaty-based means of addressing global climate change.

John Roberts

environmental government mean

We cannot deny that our decision today will have an impact on the ability of law enforcement to combat crime. Cell phones have become important tools in facilitating coordination and communication among members of criminal enterprises, and can provide valuable incriminating information about dangerous criminals. Privacy comes at a cost.

John Roberts

communication technology cells

I'm not sure that it's right to view this as excluding a particular group. When the institution of marriage developed historically, people didn't get around and say, 'Let's have this institution, but let's keep out homosexuals.' The institution developed to serve purposes that, by their nature, didn't include homosexual couples.

John Roberts

gay couple views

The Romans had been able to post their laws on boards in public places, confidant that enough literate people existed to read them; far into the Middle Ages, even kings remained illiterate.

John Roberts

kings law people

There are many different causes of the scarring. Viruses are common. Hepatitis B, hepatitis C, what we call autoimmune diseases where the body attacks the liver itself such as primary biliary cirrhosis is an autoimmune disease; sclerosing cholangitis is an autoimmune disease; and so those diseases where the liver is being destroyed by either the virus or an autoimmune disease, it can only scar, and why it doesn't regenerate has to do with the fact that there is this ongoing scar tissue that blocks that regeneration.

John Roberts

viruses block different

There is a risk of death associated with donating a piece of liver. It's about one in 500 for the risk of death. The risk of death of donating a kidney is about one in 3000, so this is a riskier operation than donating a kidney. The stakes are usually higher for the recipient of the transplant because unlike kidney failure, where you have a dialysis machine, in liver failure we don't have that kind of machine that allows a patient to survive until they can get a cadaver organ.

John Roberts

cadavers kidneys risk

If we had enough cadaver organs to go around we wouldn't do living donor liver transplants because one is we don't want to put a donor at risk, but the second is that it's a more difficult surgery for the recipient because you're getting a piece of a liver rather than a whole liver. It takes you longer to recover, and it has more complications related to where we sew together the blood vessels and the bile ducts.

John Roberts

risk together blood

An important function of the Supreme Court is to provide guidance, .. As a lower court judge, I appreciate clear guidance from the Supreme Court.

John Roberts

court-judges appreciate judging

Senator, my answer is that the independence and integrity of the Supreme Court requires that nominees before this committee for a position on that court not forecast, give predictions, give hints, about how they might rule in cases that might come before the Supreme Court,.

John Roberts

independence integrity giving

Pretty much everybody knows there are not enough organs for all of those patients who need to get transplants, and what happens is, is that organs are actually directed in liver transplantation to those patients who are the sickest. So the patients who have the greatest chance of dying in the next three months or so are the ones who get the priority for the liver transplant.

John Roberts

priorities three dying

Sometimes it’s just surreal out there, while you’re running a marathon. People just standing out in the cold, even the rain, cheering for you, blasting music for you. It’s an awesome show of camaraderie and community.

John Roberts

cheer rain running

The Affordable Care Act's requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax.

John Roberts

care may pay

You don't doubt that the lobby supporting the enactment of same sex-marriage laws in different states is politically powerful, do you?... As far as I can tell, political figures are falling over themselves to endorse your side of the case.

John Roberts

powerful sex fall