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

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Age: 87 †
Born: 1933
Born: March 15
Died: 2020
Died: September 18
Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Judge
Lawyer
Brooklyn
New York
RBG
Notorious RBG
Joan Ruth Bader
Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg
Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Meant
Independent
Told
Mother
Women
Persons
Person
Lady

More quotes by Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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All respect for the office of the presidency aside, I assumed that the obvious and unadulterated decline of freedom and constitutional sovereignty, not to mention the efforts to curb the power of judicial review, spoke for itself.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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My mother told me two things constantly. One was to be a lady, and the other was to be independent. The study of law was unusual for women of my generation. For most girls growing up in the '40s, the most important degree was not your B.A., but your M.R.S.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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Whatever community organization, whether it's a women's organization, or fighting for racial justice ... you will get satisfaction out of doing something to give back to the community that you never get in any other way.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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Our goal in the '70s was to end the closed door era. There were so many things that were off limits to women, policing, firefighting, mining, piloting planes. And the stereotypical view of people of a world divided between home and child caring women and men as breadwinners, men representing the family outside the home.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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We do not read (the law) to elevate accommodation of religious observances over an institution's need to maintain order and safety, ... We have no cause to believe that (the law) would not be applied in an appropriately balanced way, without sensitivity to security concerns.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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I became a lawyer for selfish reasons. I thought I could do a lawyer’s job better than any other.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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I do hope that some of my dissents will one day be the law.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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If I resign any time this year, he [President Obama] could not successfully appoint anyone I would like to see in the court. ... [A]nybody who thinks that if I step down, Obama could appoint someone like me, they're misguided.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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Neither federal nor state government acts compatibly with equal protection when a law or official policy denies to women, simply because they are women, full citizenship stature - equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in and contribute to society based on their individual talents and capacities.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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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
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When contemplated in its extreme, almost any power looks dangerous.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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The irony and tragedy is any woman of means can have a safe abortion somewhere in the United States. But women lacking the wherewithal to travel can't. There is no big constituency out there concerned about access restrictions on poor women.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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The emphasis must be not on the right to abortion but on the right to privacy and reproductive control.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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When police or prosecutors conceal significant exculpatory or impeaching material, we hold, it is ordinarily incumbent on the state to set the record straight.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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Racial discrimination in elections in Texas is no mere historical artifact. To the contrary, Texas has been found in violation of the Voting Rights Act in every redistricting cycle from and after 1970.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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People who have been hardworking, tax paying, those people ought to be given an opportunity to be on a track that leads towards citizenship and if that happened, then they wouldn't be prey to the employers who say we want you because we know that you work for a salary we could not lawfully pay anyone else.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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It is not women's liberation, it is women's and men's liberation.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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The written argument endures. The oral argument is fleeting.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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Legislators know much more about elections than the Court does.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg