I could see flames from the windows of my chambers. For the next three or four days we had major rioting here in Washington and I stayed at the court day and night.

I took the position from day one that it was the right decree, that the modifications I made to the decree were proper, that the correct outcome had been obtained, and that in due time all of that would become apparent. And it has become apparent.

The impression I have of Justice Warren is that he was looking for the just result in a case regardless of fixed dogma or principles and I like to think that I'm in that mold.

I could see flames from the windows of my chambers. For the next three or four days we had major rioting here in Washington and I stayed at the court day and night.

The attorney general would call at 5 o'clock in the evening and say: 'Tomorrow morning we are going to try to integrate the University of Mississippi. Get us a memo on what we're likely to do, and what we can do if the governor sends the National Guard there.'

The enforcement of the law cannot depend on the justice of a cause or one man's conscience.

I don't think a judge should be too much involved in outside activities.

There would be nights when I would wake up and couldn't get back to sleep. So I would go downstairs and write. The staff had a pool going on how many pages of typing I would bring in here in the morning.

People are intimidated in court, and I try to make them more comfortable.

They say I am a regulator and I think it is just an effort not to comply with the decree. I do not do anything except what the decree requires me to do.

Once I was standing in line to buy a telephone and Senator Wirth was in line with me. The next day the New York Times reported that we'd both purchased telephones and what price we'd paid!

You can't just lecture the poor that they shouldn't riot or go to extremes. You have to make the means of legal redress available.

The traditional practice is that the justices don't ask the attorney general any questions, so as not to embarrass him. But Bobby Kennedy had let them know that he didn't mind if they asked him questions and they did.

With competition everyone has to try harder.

I liked discussion and debate and thought that these skills fit well with law. I also had an interest in justice - and later learned that sometimes law and justice actually agree!

Every one of the world's dictatorships can and does claim to be acting in the name of the people.

Defendants are being evaluated based on numerical grid without any aggravating circumstances being considered. The effect has been to transfer the disparity from the judge to the prosecutor allowing for a great deal of leeway on indictments.

Competition is good and has served us well.

I'm a great believer in the competitive system, and think that competition will bring us greater innovation and put American industry in information ahead of everyone also.

The real difference between the United States and other nations lies not in the words of the preamble to the Constitution, but in the fact that the substantive clauses of that Constitution are enforced by individuals independent of and not beholden to the elected branches.

I enjoyed the administrative work because it involved working with Congress, city council, and the mayor. I had never been a politician so it was fun - learning political maneuvering.

If members of the security apparatus could, with impunity, keep from those elected by the people that which they're entitled to know - or worse, feed false information - those who could control the classified data could be the real decision makers.

Frequently you have a clash between the more sterile letter of the law and the justice that underlies it, and I think one of the things I've been trying more or less, where it was possible, is to go with the justice rather than the letter of the law.

For a while, even in the house of good friends for dinner or for cocktails, they would really be upset. They thought I had single-handedly destroyed the best phone service in the world.

The Sherman Act is similar in the economics sphere to the Bill of Rights in the personal sphere.

The testimony and the documentary evidence produced by the Government demonstrate that the Bell System had violated the antitrust laws in a number of ways over a lengthy period of time.

I think it does work. The fact that the law is there and injustices can be rectified, I think has a lot to do with the fact that the people in this country aren't as frustrated as they are in some of these places in Eastern Europe and don't resort to violent revolution.

Mandatory sentencing guidelines have become as complicated and detailed as the IRS code!

I don't want to be influenced by outside opinion.

Every one of the worlds dictatorships can and does claim to be acting in the name of the people.

As a member of this court I am not justified in writing my private notions of policy into the Constitution, no matter how deeply I may cherish them or how mischievous I may deem their disregard.

The court of last resort is no longer the Supreme Court. It's "Nightline."

I would not like to be the only woman on the court.

There are certain promises you make that are more sacred than anything that happens in a court of law, I don't care how many Bibles you put your hand on.

Towards the end of the Lord Chamberlain's era, when his hold was being loosened, private prosecutions began to happen. A member of staff at the Royal Court ordered to stop the play, and the police were brought in.

If in any divination the Tenth Card should be a Court Card, it shews that the subject of the divination falls ultimately into the hands of a person represented by that card, and its end depends mainly on him.

All of our affairs, since the union of crowns, have been managed by the advice of English ministers, and the principal offices of the kingdom filled with such men, as the court of England knew would be subservient to their designs.

One camp accepts the Court's limits on contributions but urges the reinstatement of spending caps - even if this requires a constitutional amendment subjecting political speech, if not pornography, to government regulation.

There is no person in this room whose basic rights are not involved in any successful defiance to the carrying out of court orders.

The court is like a palace of marble; it's composed of people very hard and very polished.

I always try to keep a pretty conservative demeanor on the court.

I didn't know how much I cared about having a woman on the court until the day there was a woman on the court.

And there had to be a dagger thrust in the heart of the left to tell them that you are no longer gonna give five years for a Smith Act prosecution or one year for Contempt of Court, but we're gonna kill ya!

I don't play full court anymore. I just play half-court.

Many words are not wanting to show that the particular view of each court occasioned the dangers which affected the public tranquillity; yet the whole is charged to my account. Nor is this sufficient.

You get a lawyer whether you're in a military tribunal or whether you're in a federal court, number one. The attorney general decided that the court with the biggest - with the greatest venue, with the best jurisdiction was the New York court. That was the right decision to make.

All the culture war issues will be settled by the court.

I got the chance to argue my first case in Supreme Court, a criminal case arising in Alabama that involved the right of a defendant to counsel at a critical stage in a capital case before a trial.

If it gets to the Supreme Court, I'll have the directors of every museum in the country as expert testimony that my work is legitimate art.