Quotes by Clarence Thomas - Page 2 | QuoteForever

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I grew up in a religious environment, and I'm proud of it. I was going to be a priest; I'm proud of it. And I thank God I believe in God, or I would probably be enormously angry right now.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Angry
Environment
Grew
Proud
Religious
Thank God
God Believe I Believe
God Believe Thank God
Priest
Thank
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You have a number of choices. You could continue to always fight against people who are really distractions. They're people in the cheap seats of life. Or you can do what you went there to do.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Choices
Fighting
Numbers
People
Seats
Against
Life Always Fight
Cheap
Continue
Could
Life Fight People
Fight
Distractions
Number
Life People Always
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Differences in race, differences in sex, somebody doesn’t look at you right, somebody says something. Everybody is sensitive. If I had been as sensitive as that in the 1960s, I’d still be in Savannah.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Differences
Race
Sex
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A theory deeply etched in our law [is that] a free society prefers to punish the few who abuse the rights of free speech after they break the law rather than to throttle them and all others beforehand.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Justice
Law
Rights
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Oh, I don't think Tom Sowell would tell anybody to join the administration. That's not his style. But I think his attitude has always been if it had to be done he'd prefer me to do it than somebody else.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Attitude
Administration
Style
Thinking
Done Always Me
Prefer
Join
Tom
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The job of a judge is to figure out what the law says, not what he wants it to say. There is a difference between the role of a judge and that of a policy maker... Judging requires a certain impartiality.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Jobs
Differences
Law
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Today, now, it is time to move forward, a time to look for what is good in others, what is good in our country. It is time to see what we have in common, what we have to share as human beings and citizens.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Citizens
Country
Moving
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The absolute worst I have ever been treated, the worst things that have been done to me, the worst things that have been said about me, are by northern liberal elites, not by the people of Savannah, Georgia.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Done
People
Savannah
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[T]he courts are so willing to assume that anything that is predominantly black must be inferior.... The mere fact that a school is black does not mean that it is the product of an unconstitutional violation.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Black
Mean
School
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I don't know one of my friends who is considered a conservative who has not had to go back and thoroughly think through everything. You do a lot of soul-searching - 'cause we are not going to win any popularity contests.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Friends
Conservative
Popularity
Soul
Thinking
Winning
Thoroughly
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I think segregation is bad, I think it's wrong, it's immoral. I'd fight against it with every breath in my body, but you don't need to sit next to a white person to learn how to read and write. The NAACP needs to say that.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Body
Fighting
Immoral
Naacp
Next
Segregation
Thinking
White
Writing
Person
Need
Against
Bad
Breath
Write
Every
Read
Fight
How
Wrong
Say
Learn
Sit
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And I don't think that government has a role in telling people how to live their lives. Maybe a minister does, maybe your belief in God does, maybe there's another set of moral codes, but I don't think government has a role.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
God
Government
Belief
Moral
People
Thinking
God Your People
Does
Codes
How
Set
Maybe
Minister
Role
Telling
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I actually think that I have been fortunate to have had misfortune, because the response, in responding to the misfortune, you develop in your own life, you develop sort of the tools you need to continue on, or to do better.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Needs
Thinking
Tools
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I was smart enough to use pot without getting caught, and now I'm on the Supreme Court. If you were stupid enough to get caught, that's your problem. Your appeal is denied. This 40 year sentence just might teach you a lesson.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Smart
Stupid
Years
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The Constitution does not vest in Congress the authority to protect society from every bad act that might befall it....[I]f followed to its logical extreme, [this approach] would result in an unwarranted expansion of federal power.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Doe
Expansion
Might
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Even as someone who's labeled a conservative - I'm a Republican I'm black, I'm heading up this organization in the Reagan administration - I can say that conservatives don't exactly break their necks to tell blacks that they're welcome.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Break Up
Smile
Administration
Black
Conservative
Necks
Organization
Welcome
Blacks
Conservatives
Heading
Labeled
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When I was a kid, we said that we were precluded from going to certain neighborhoods because of the color of our skin Now the neighborhoods are the neighborhoods of ideas, youre not supposed to be there because of the color of your skin.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Kids
Color
Ideas
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My job is to write opinions. I decide cases and write opinions. It is not to respond to idiocy and critics who make statements that are unfounded. That doesn't mean that people shouldn't have constructive criticisms, but it should be constructive.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Cases
Constructive
Idiocy
Statements
Job
Criticisms
Respond
Opinions
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When you look at where the real problems are among minorities in our society, particularly blacks, it's at the bottom. It's the people who are in school systems that don't educate, neighborhoods where there is a lot of crime, drugs, the whole bit.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Bottom
Crime
Educate
Minorities
People
Real
Real Problems
School
Blacks
Particularly
Systems
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But what I believe is that if a person's individual rights or right to be a part of our economic system is violated under statute, we aggressively go after it. But we don't issue mandates to businesses that you've got to do this and you've got to do that.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Believe
Economic
Individual
Individual Rights
Issues
Mandates
Rights
Businesses
Believe I Believe Person
Economic System
Issue
Violated
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While the romanticized ideal of universal public education resonates with the cognoscenti who oppose vouchers, poor urban families just want the best education for their children, who will certainly need it to function in our high-tech and advanced society.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Politics
Children
Needs
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I'd grown up fearing the lynch mobs of the Ku Klux Klan; as an adult I was starting to wonder if I'd been afraid of the wrong white people all along - where I was being pursued not by bigots in white robes, but by left-wing zealots draped in flowing sanctimony.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Ku Klux Klan
White
Wings
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When I went into the seminary, I was one of those victims of New Math and had not had Algebra I and had no idea what we were doing in New Math in the ninth grade. But when I went into the seminary, they had gone the traditional route and taught first-year algebra.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Algebra
Math
Seminary
Traditional
Grade
Ninth
Route
Victims
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My grandfather was a man, when he talked about freedom, his attitude was really interesting. His view was that you had obligations or you had responsibilities, and when you fulfilled those obligations or responsibilities, that then gave you the liberty to do other things.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Attitude
Men
Fulfilled
Grandfather
Interesting
Liberty
Responsibility
Gave
Obligations
Responsibilities
View
Talked
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In my humble opinion, those who come to engage in debates of consequence, and who challenge accepted wisdom, should expect to be treated badly. Nonetheless, they must stand undaunted. That is required. And that should be expected. For it is bravery that is required to secure freedom.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Courage
Bravery
Humble
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It's fascinating that people, there's so many people now who will make judgments based on what you look like. I'm black. So I'm supposed to think a certain way. I'm supposed to have certain opinions. I don't do that. You don't create a box and put people in and then make a lot of generalizations about them.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Black
Certain
Fascinating
Look People Will
Now
Lot
Then
Look People Black
Box
Based
Them
Certain Way
Look Black People
Black People Way
Create
Look
Generalizations
Judgments
Put
Opinions
So Many People
Supposed
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A good argument diluted to avoid criticism is not nearly as good as the undiluted argument, because we best arrive at truth through a process of honest and vigorous debate. Arguments should not sneak around in disguise, as if dissent were somehow sinister... For it is bravery that is required to secure freedom.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Courage
Truth
Justice
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Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law. That [affirmative action] programs may have been motivated, in part, by good intentions cannot provide refuge from the principle that under our Constitution, the government may not make distinctions on the basis of race.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Equality
Government
Law
Race
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There's a difference between someone who's 'harsh' and someone who is 'hard.' Life was hard. You lived in the South, as my grandparents did, and you had to survive. That is hard. In order to respond to that, he had to become a hard man, with very hard rules, very hard discipline for himself, very hard days, hard work, et cetera.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Discipline
Hard Life
Order
Life Work Hard Work
Rules
Did
Between
Days
Respond
Himself
Survive
To Survive
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Long gone is the time when we opposed the notion that we all looked alike and talked alike. Somehow we have come to exalt the new black stereotype above all and to demand conformity to that norm... [However], I assert my right to think for myself, to refuse to have my ideas assigned to me as though I was an intellectual slave because I'm black.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Ideas
Long
Thinking
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I believe that there is a moral and constitutional equivalence between laws designed to subjugate a race and those that distribute benefits on the basis of race in order to foster some current notion of equality.... In my mind, government-sponsored racial discrimination based on benign prejudice is just as noxious as discrimination inspired by malicious prejudice.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Equality
Government
Believe
Race
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I would walk into the Carnegie Library and I would see the pictures of Booker T. and pictures of Frederick Douglass and I would read. I would go into the Savannah Public Libraries in the stacks and see all of the newspapers from all over the country. Did I dream that I would be on the Supreme Court? No. But I dreamt that there was a world out there that was worth pursuing.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Dream
Country
Library
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My grandfather was a man, when he talked about freedom, his attitude was really interesting. His view was that you had obligations or you had responsibilities, and when you fulfilled those obligations or responsibilities, that then gave you the liberty to do other things. So the freedoms that we talk about today, the liberties that we talk about today were the benefits that you got from discharging your responsibilities.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Attitude
Men
Responsibility
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The Constitution, in addition to delegating certain enumerated powers to Congress, places whole areas outside the reach of Congress' regulatory authority. The First Amendment, for example, is fittingly celebrated for preventing Congress from "prohibiting the free exercise" of religion or "abridging the freedom of speech." The Second Amendment similarly appears to contain an express limitation on the government's authority.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Government
Exercise
Freedom Of Speech
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The Constitution contains no 'dignity' Clause, and even if it did, the government would be incapable of bestowing dignity. ... Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them. And those denied governmental benefits certainly do not lose their dignity because the government denies them those benefits.
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Government
Gay Marriage
Humanity
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Merely because I was black, it seemed, I was supposed to listen to Hugh Maskela instead of Carole King, just as I was expected to be a radical, not a conservative. I no longer cared to play that game ... The black people I knew came from different places and backgrounds - social, economic, even ethnic - yet the color of our skin was somehow supposed to make us identical in spite of our differences. I didn't buy it. Of course we had all experienced racism in one way or another, but that did not mean we had to think alike
Clarence Thomas / Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Kings
Color
Mean
Thinking
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