My Own Words

by Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Choosing the right word, and the right word order, he illustrated, could make an enormous difference in conveying an image or an idea.

“In every good marriage,” she counseled, “it helps sometimes to be a little deaf.”

When a thoughtless or unkind word is spoken, best tune out. Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one’s ability to persuade.

Each part of my life provided respite from the other and gave me a sense of proportion that classmates trained only on law studies lacked.

For both men and women the first step in getting power is to become visible to others, and then to put on an impressive show. . . . As women achieve power, the barriers will fall. As society sees what women can do, as women see what women can do, there will be more women out there doing things, and we’ll all be better off for it.XII I heartily concur in that expectation. Ruth Bader Ginsburg July 2016

Friday afternoons found Ruth at her local library, which was housed above a Chinese restaurant and a beauty parlor. While her mother had her hair done downstairs, Ruth would savor her time in the library, the delicious smell of spices wafting up from the restaurant while she read Greek myths and books such as The Secret Garden and Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. (Of all the March sisters, Ruth loved the lively independent intellectual Jo the best.) Ruth was also a fan of the Nancy Drew detective books. Unlike scary films, which gave her nightmares, she was not frightened by the mystery stories. She loved Nancy Drew because “Nancy was a girl who did things. She was adventuresome, daring, and her boyfriend was a much more passive type than she was.” 4 For similar reasons, Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, also captured her imagination. Earhart had taken her historic flight the year before Ruth was born and went missing over the Pacific five years later; Ruth was drawn to Amelia’s courage and sense of adventure.5 Ruth was not only an avid reader, she also created stories of her own—her younger cousins remember her as a gifted and dramatic storyteller.6 She was also fond of poetry, both reading and memorizing it. A few of her childhood favorites were Emma Lazarus’ famous words inscribed at the foot of the Statue of Liberty (“Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”); Shakespeare’s Henry V Epilogue (“Small t...

“Prejudice saves us a painful trouble, the trouble of thinking.”

The two teachers who influenced her most were very different people: Vladimir Nabokov, a novelist and professor of European literature, and Robert E. Cushman, a political scientist and constitutional scholar. According to Ruth, Nabokov changed the way she read and wrote: “He used words to paint pictures. Even today, when I read, I notice with pleasure when an author has chosen a particular word, a particular place, for the picture it will convey to the reader.” Ruth remembers Nabokov as a great showman and a spellbinding teacher, and recounted how his wife, Véra, would sit in the back of the third-floor lecture hall with its tall wooden doors and shake her head when he said something particularly outrageous. Ruth, whose judicial and scholarly writing is distinctively concise and well crafted, credits Nabokov: “I try to give people the picture in not too many words, and I strive to find the right words.” 1

We may be anxious to reduce crime, but we should remember that in our system of justice, the presumption of innocence is prime, and the law cannot apply one rule to Joe who is a good man, and another to John, who is a hardened criminal.

Ruth is somebody who is simply not afraid of dead air time. If you ask her a question that requires a thought-through answer she will stop, think it through and then answer

All smiles, Professor Jane announced she had grown up in a home in which responsibility was equally divided: her father did the cooking, she explained, and her mother did the thinking. It was Jane’s press statement that convinced me truth should not be allowed as a defense in defamation actions.

Once asked how we could be friends, given our disagreement on lots of things, Justice Scalia answered: “I attack ideas. I don’t attack people. Some very good people have some very bad ideas. And if you can’t separate the two, you gotta get another day job. You don’t want to be a judge. At least not a judge on a multi-member panel.”

AS A YOUNG LAWYER living in Sweden, Ruth Bader Ginsburg came across the word vägmärken, which translates literally as “pathmarker” or “waypaver.” 1 Many consider the Justice herself to be an exemplary “waypaver” and “pathmarker,” blazing the gender equality trail and expanding opportunities for women and men, yet she is also known for giving credit to those who came before her, illuminating little-known historical figures and spotlighting those who helped pave the way for her own opportunities and accomplishments.

Belva LockwoodI Tonight I speak about a woman of courage who would not be put down, a woman who, in 1879, made the U.S. Supreme Court change its ways. Her name, Belva Ann Lockwood, her birth year, 1830. Lockwood was the first woman ever to gain admission to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bar, the first woman to argue a case before the nine Justices, and the first woman to run the full course for president.

“We shall never have equal rights until we take them, nor equal respect until we command it.”

For both men and women the first step in getting power is to become visible to others, and then to put on an impressive show. . . . As women achieve power, the barriers will fall. As society sees what women can do, as women see what women can do, there will be more women out there doing things, and we’ll all be better off for it.3