Political Quotes

From the bench

Judges & Justices

Quotes from judges and justices — opinions, dissents, and remarks on the record.

Current judges & justices

Clarence Thomas
@clarencethomas· Jun 27, 2025

The Due Process Clause protects an individual's natural liberty from government interference.

newsweek.com
Clarence Thomas
@clarencethomas· Jun 27, 2025

There is every reason to think that the ultimate claim of actual innocence on which Gutierrez's case rests is baseless.

newsweek.com
Clarence Thomas
@clarencethomas· Jun 27, 2025

The Fourteenth Amendment does not protect Gutierrez's asserted 'liberty interest.'

newsweek.com
Clarence Thomas
@clarencethomas· Jun 27, 2025

Intervention serves no purpose other than to exacerbate the already egregious delays endemic to capital litigation.

newsweek.com
Clarence Thomas
@clarencethomas· Jun 27, 2025

The statute advances the state’s important interest in shielding children from sexually explicit content.

cnn.com
Ketanji Brown Jackson
@ketanjibrownjackson· Jun 27, 2025

Will strip those South Carolinians — and countless other Medicaid recipients around the country — of a deeply personal freedom: the ability to decide who treats us at our most vulnerable.

democracynow.org
Samuel Alito
@samuelalito· Jun 27, 2025

The board's introduction of the 'LGBTQ+ inclusive' storybooks, along with its decision to withhold opt-outs, places an unconstitutional burden on the parents' rights to the free exercise of their religion.

nbcnews.com
Samuel Alito
@samuelalito· Jun 27, 2025

The practice of educating one’s children in one’s religious beliefs, like all religious acts and practices, receives a generous measure of protection from our Constitution.

motherjones.com
Elena Kagan
@elenakagan· Jun 27, 2025

It is turning over information about yourself and your viewing habits—respecting speech many find repulsive—to a website operator, and then to… who knows?

commondreams.org
Elena Kagan
@elenakagan· Jun 27, 2025

You relax strict scrutiny in one place, and all of a sudden, strict scrutiny gets relaxed in other places.

commondreams.org
Elena Kagan
@elenakagan· Jun 27, 2025

No one doubts that the distribution of sexually explicit speech to children, of the sort involved here, can cause great harm.

commondreams.org
Samuel Alito
@samuelalito· Jun 27, 2025

We reject this chilling vision of the power of the state to strip away the critical right of parents to guide the religious development of their children.

msnbc.com
Samuel Alito
@samuelalito· Jun 27, 2025

Today, we hold that the parents have shown that they are entitled to a preliminary injunction.

msnbc.com
Ketanji Brown Jackson
@ketanjibrownjackson· Jun 27, 2025

I have no doubt that, if judges must allow the executive to act unlawfully in some circumstances, executive lawlessness will flourish.

cnn.com
Ketanji Brown Jackson
@ketanjibrownjackson· Jun 27, 2025

I have no doubt that, if judges must allow the Executive to act unlawfully in some circumstances, as the Court concludes today, executive lawlessness will flourish, and from there, it is not difficult to predict how this all ends.

motherjones.com
Ketanji Brown Jackson
@ketanjibrownjackson· Jun 27, 2025

The Court’s decision is nothing less than an open invitation for the Government to bypass the Constitution.

motherjones.com
Ketanji Brown Jackson
@ketanjibrownjackson· Jun 27, 2025

The go-ahead to sometimes wield the kind of unchecked, arbitrary power the Founders crafted our Constitution to eradicate

slate.com
Ketanji Brown Jackson
@ketanjibrownjackson· Jun 27, 2025

Eventually, executive power will become completely uncontainable, and our beloved constitutional Republic will be no more.

thenation.com
Brett Kavanaugh
@brettkavanaugh· Jun 27, 2025

The uncertainty that would befall hospitals and states in the interim.

msnbc.com
Ketanji Brown Jackson
@ketanjibrownjackson· Jun 27, 2025

The absence of a nationwide injunction would require every individual affected by the executive order to file their own lawsuit, turning the government’s immigration enforcement into a 'catch-me-if-you-can kind of regime.'

msnbc.com
Elena Kagan
@elenakagan· Jun 27, 2025

An untold number of people currently entitled to U.S. citizenship would be without lawful status to remain in the country.

msnbc.com
Ketanji Brown Jackson
@ketanjibrownjackson· Jun 27, 2025

Our country will now consist of zone one, where individuals born in the country are granted birthright citizenship, and zone two, where they are non-citizens subject to deportation.

msnbc.com