Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Work hard on each opinion, but once the case is d...

Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

care fighting way

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

keys reading dream

So now the perception is, yes, women are here to stay. And 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

perception men people

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

envy energy self

We live in an age in which the fundamental principles to which we subscribe - liberty, equality and justice for all - are encountering extraordinary challenges, ... But it is also an age in which we can join hands with others who hold to those principles and face similar challenges.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

justice-for-all challenges hands

My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

women independent mother

We should learn ... to do our best for the sake of our communities and for the sake of those for whom we pave the way.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

community leadership sports

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

agendas rights people

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

tunes littles people

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

freedom-of-speech views writing

I conceived of myself in large part as a teacher. There wasn't a great understanding of gender discrimination. People knew that race discrimination was an odious thing, but there were many who thought that all the gender-based differentials in the law operated benignly in women's favor. So my objective was to take the Court step by step to the realization, in Justice Brennan's words, that the pedestal on which some thought women were standing all too often turned out to be a cage.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

race law teacher

Work for the things that you care about.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

care

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

girl teaching song

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

democracy decision thinking

Generalizations about the "way women are" and estimates of what is appropriate for most women no longer justify denying opportunity to women whose talent and capacity place them outside the average description.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

opportunity average way

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

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

united-states looks years

Even the Declaration of Independence starts out all men are created equal, so I see my advocacy as part of an effort to make the equality principle everything the founders would have wanted it to be if they weren't held back by the society in which they lived and particularly the shame of slavery.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

independence effort men

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

differences caring thinking

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

eugenics population growth

Historically, the new government had no money to pay for an army, so they relied on the state militias. And the states required men to have certain weapons and they specified in the law what weapons these people had to keep in their home so that when they were called to do service as militiamen, they would have them. That was the entire purpose of the Second Amendment.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

army home men

Work hard on each opinion, but once the case is decided, don't look back; go on to the next case and give it your all. It's not productive to worry about what's out and released, over and done. That's advice I now give to people new to the judging business.