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In our society, marriage is not simply a governmental institution it is a religious institution as well, today's decision might change the former, but it cannot change the latter.

Clarence Thomas

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Clarence Thomas
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: June 23
Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Judge
Lawyer
Politician
Pin Point
Georgia
Well
Decision
Governmental
Religious
Ruling
Society
Institution
Cannot
Latter
Change
Former
Today
Institutions
Wells
Marriage
Might
Simply

More quotes by Clarence Thomas

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And I thank God I believe in God, or I would probably be enormously angry right now.
Clarence Thomas
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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My grandfather could barely read. My grandmother had a sixth-grade education. They were people who were industrious. They were frugal.
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The truth of the matter is we have become more interested in designer jeans and break dancing than we are in obligations and responsibilities.
Clarence Thomas
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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
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We've talked more about civil rights after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than we talked about it before 1964.
Clarence Thomas
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I don't really have the luxury to be bitter. I don't have the luxury of having negative things in my life.
Clarence Thomas
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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The White House said today that Judge Clarence Thomas, President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, had smoked marijuana while in college.
Clarence Thomas
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It takes a person with a mission to succeed.
Clarence Thomas
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I do think that our freedoms are at risk.
Clarence Thomas
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Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot.
Clarence Thomas
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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