William Rehnquist Quotations

It is always possible for the court to overreach its proper bounds and perhaps declare a lot of laws unconstitutional and frustrate the will of the majority in a way that it ought not be frustrated.

If you could say of any one individual that the court as an institution is the length and shadow of that individual, surely it would be John Marshall.

Perhaps you should say there should be mandatory retirement even of members of the court, members of the federal judiciary. I'm sure there can be questions about whether one does as good work when you get into your - you know, I'm 67.

We strike down the floating buffer zones around people entering and leaving the clinics because they burden more speech than is necessary to serve the relevant government interests,

Miranda announced a constitutional rule that Congress may not supersede legislatively.

No exact formula can dictate a resolution in fact-intensive cases such as this,

But the greatest injury of the 'wall' notion is its mischievous diversion of judges from the actual intentions of the drafters of the Bill of Rights. . . . The "wall of separation between church and state" is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.

He was a man of character and dedication.

has been repeatedly reaffirmed by a changing group of justices.

I wrote this book for a sense of personal satisfaction. Just like taking a good photograph or painting a picture or playing a good golf game or something, it's the thing in itself that justifies it.

I think it's safe to say that no one smelled more roses than my dad,

Our judges will not continue to represent the diverse face of America if only the well-to-do or the mediocre are willing to become judges.

The American judicial system is admired throughout the world.

to say that it is easily applied is just a myth.

To the extent that libraries wish to offer unfiltered access, they are free to do so without federal assistance.

When you are young and impecunious, society conditions you to exchange time for money, and this is quite as it should be. Very few people are hurt by having to work for a living. But as you become more affluent, it somehow is very, very difficult to reverse that process and begin trading money for time.

To reach its result, the court necessarily has had to find within the scope of the 14th Amendment a right that was apparently completely unknown to the drafters of the amendment,

As the demographic makeup of this pool changes, it seems entirely likely that the under-representation of minorities to which you refer in your letter will also change,

I used to worry about every little footnote, ... Now I realize you just need five votes.

The Supreme Court is an institution far more dominated by centrifugal forces, pushing toward individuality and independence, than it is by centripetal forces pulling for hierarchical ordering and institutional unity.

Somewhere out there, beyond the walls of the courthouse, run currents and tides of public opinion which lap at the courtroom door.

A father's interest in having a child -- perhaps his only child -- may be unmatched by any other interest in life.

Commutation decisions have not traditionally been the business of the courts, ... As such, they are rarely, if ever, appropriate subjects for judicial review.

A public library does not acquire Internet terminals in order to create a public forum for Web publishers to express themselves, any more than it collects books in order to provide a public forum for the authors of books to speak.

an excellent administrator. No justice ever missed a deadline in the time he served.

All principles of antitrust law are court made, so we need to be as clear as possible.

It is truly surprising that the state must assign a greater value to a mother's decision to cut off a potential human life by abortion than to a father's decision to let it mature into a live child.

It's the thing in itself that justifies it.

the fairest, most efficient boss I have ever had.

I leave you now a wiser, but not a sadder, man,

Inadequate compensation seriously compromises the judicial independence fostered by life tenure. That low salaries might force judges to return to the private sector rather than stay on the bench risks affecting judicial performance. . . . Every time an experienced judge leaves the bench, the nation suffers temporary loss in judicial productivity. Diminishing judicial salaries affects not only those who have become judges but also the pool of those willing to be considered for a position on the federal bench.

I didn't know we had that many people on our court.

Garvey said. ''He's been very important in getting the court to recognize limitations on congressional power.

a gentle dignity and an unfailing sense of purpose and sometimes a sense of humor.

The framers of our Constitution came up with two major contributions to the art of government. The first was the idea of an executive not dependent on the political support of the legislature. The second was the idea of the judiciary independent of the executive and legislative branches.

The Constitution does not guarantee the right to acquire information at a public library without any risk of embarrassment.

[I]f we assume a liberty interest but nevertheless say that, even assuming a liberty interest, a state can prohibit it entirely, that would be rather a conundrum.

Pregnancy is of course confined to women, but it is in other ways significantly different from the typical covered disease or disability

The Constitution requires that Congress treat similarly situated persons similarly, not that it engages in gestures of superficial equality.

Conservatives are those who worship dead radicals.

The wall of separation between church and state is a metaphor based on bad history.

Somewhere "out there," beyond the walls of the courthouse, run currents and tides of public opinion which lap at the courtroom door.

The Equal Rights Amendment would "turn holy wedlock into holy deadlock."

It is impossible to build sound constitutional doctrine upon a mistaken understanding of Constitutional history... The establishment clause has been expressly freighted with Jefferson's misleading metaphor for nearly forty years... There is simply no historical foundation for the proposition that the framers intended to build a wall of separation... The recent court decisions are in no way based on either the language or intent of the framers.

In any civilized society the most important task is achieving a proper balance between freedom and order. In wartime, reason and history both suggest that this balance shifts in favor... of the government's ability to deal with conditions that threaten the national well-being.

We start with first principles. The Constitution creates a Federal Government of enumerated powers.

I realize that it is an unpopular and unhumanitarian position, for which I have been excoriated by 'liberal' colleagues, but I think Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be re-affirmed,

A father's interest in having a child--perhaps his only child--may be unmatched by any other interest in his life. It is truly surprising that the state must assign a greater value to a mother's decision to cut off a potential human life by abortion than to a father's decision to let it mature into a live child.

At the heart of the First Amendment is the recognition of the fundamental importance of the free flow of ideas and opinions on matters of public interest and concern. The freedom to speak one's mind is not only an aspect of individual liberty - and thus a good unto itself - but also is essential to the common quest for truth and the vitality of society as a whole. We have therefore been particularly vigilant to ensure that individual expressions of ideas remain free from governmentally imposed sanctions.

What many of those who oppose the use of juries in civil trials seem to ignore is that the founders of our Nation considered the right of trial by jury in civil cases an important bulwark against tyranny and corruption, a safeguard too precious to be left to the whim of the sovereign, or, it might be added, to that of the judiciary.

The 'wall of separation between church and state' is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.