RUTH BADER GINSBURG WISDOM AND MORE

[Barbara]

"Women will have achieved true equality when men share with them the responsibility of bringing up the next generation"

[Barbara]

"The state controlling a woman would mean denying her full autonomy and full equality."

[Barbara]

"I read every federal case that had to do with women's equality or the lack thereof and read every law review article. Now that seems like it was quite an undertaking but in fact, it was easily manageable because there was so little."

[Barbara]

"We should each be free go develop our own talents, whatever they may be, and not be held back by artificial barriers."

[Barbara]

"I think unconscious bias is one of the hardest things to get at. My favorite example is the symphony orchestra. When I was growing up, there were no women in the orchestras. Auditioners thought they could tell the difference between a woman playing and a man....

Some intelligent person devised a simple solution: Drop a curtain between the auditioners and the people trying out. And, lo and behold, women began to get jobs in the symphony orchestras."

[Barbara]

"You asked me about my thinking about equal protection versus individual autonomy, and my answer to you is it's both. This is something central to a woman's life, to her dignity.....It's a decision that she must make for herself. And when Government controls that decision for her, she's being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices."

[Barbara]

"Men and Women are persons of equal dignity and they should count equally before the law."

[Barbara]

"The side that wants to take the choice away from women and give it to the state, they're fighting a losing battle. Time is on the side of change."

[Barbara]

"You can imagine how exhilarating it was for me when the women's movement came alive in the late '60s and it became possible to do something about all that. Before then, you were talking to the wind....."

[Barbara]

"When you think of the truly great and brave ladies, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, those were women who didn't have a wave to ride. We did. We came at a time when society was finally willing to listen."

[Barbara]

"The notion used to be that there were separate spheres for the sexes. Men were the doers in the world and women were the stay-at-home types."

[Barbara]

"A person's sex bears no necessary relationship to ability."

[Barbara]

"Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious.....The states that changed their abortion laws before Roe are not going to change back. So we have a policy that only affects poor women, and it can never be otherwise."

[Barbara]

"Feminism....I think the simplest explanation, and one that captures the idea, is a song that Marlo Thomas sang. 'Free to be You and Me.' Free to be, if you were a girl - a doctor, lawyer, Indian chief. Anything you want to be. And if you're a boy, and you like teaching, you like nursing, you would like to have a doll, that's okay too...."

[Barbara]

"The notion that we should each be free to develop our own talents, whatever they may be, and not be held back by artificial barriers - man-made barriers, certainly not heaven sent."

[Barbara]

"Young women today have a great advantage, and it is that there are no more closed doors. That was basically what the '70s was all about. Opening doors that that had been closed to women."

[Barbara]

"People ask me sometimes.....'When will there be enough women on the Supreme Court?' And my answer is, 'When there are nine.' " 😊❤🌻👍✨



Four women on the Supreme Court in 2022

[Barbara]

"Dissents speak to a future age. It's not simply to say, 'my colleagues are wrong and I would do it this way,' but the greatest dissents do become court opinions."

[Barbara]

"The notion that the Partial-Birth-Abortion Ban Act furthers any legitimate governmental interest is, quite simple irrational....the Court's defense of it cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this Court - and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women's lives."

[Barbara]

"Well, it says to the world, [women] are not [on the Supreme Court] as one-at-a-time curiosities. We're her to stay, and in all our diversity....I went through the entire last term which was my, what, seventh year on the court, with no one calling me Justice O'Connor. It took six years, but that, to me, was a sign that we've really made it, that all know there are two women." 😊❤🍀

[Barbara]

"It's almost like being back in law school in 1956, when there were nine of us in a class of over 500, so that meant most sections had just two women, and you felt that every eye was on you. Every time you went to answer a question, you were answering for your entire sex. It may not have been true, but certainly you felt that way. You were different and the object of curiosity."

[Barbara]

"Justices continue to think and can change. I am ever hopeful that if the court has a blind spot today, its eyes will be open tomorrow."

[Barbara]

"I was a law school teacher. And that's how I regard my role here [on the Supreme Court] with my colleagues, who haven't had the experience of growing up female and don't fully appreciate the arbitrary barriers that have been put in womens' way."

[Barbara]

"We care about this institution more than our individual egos and we are all devoted to keeping the Supreme Court in the place that it is, as a co-equal third branch of government and I think a model for the world in the collegiality and independence of judges."

[Barbara]

"I'm dejected, but only momentarily when I can't get the fifth vote for something I think is very important. But then you go on to the next challenge and you give it your all.....You know that these important issues are not going to go away. They are going to cone back again and again. There'll be another time, another day."

[Barbara]

"We should not be held back from pursuing our full talents, from contributing what we could contribute to the society, because we fit into a certain mold.....because we belong to a group that historically has been the object of discrimination."

[Barbara]

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

[Barbara]

"The greatest statement of equality is in the Declaration of Independence, written by a slaveholder."

[Barbara]

"Just as buildings in California have a greater need to be earthquake proofed, places where there is greater racial polarization in voting have a greater need for prophylactic measures to prevent purposeful race discrimination."

[Barbara]

"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."

[Barbara]

On marriage equality for everyone:

"All of the incentives, all of the benefits marriage affords would still be available. So you're not taking anything away from heterosexual couples. They would have the very same incentive to marry, with all the benefits that come with marriage that they do now."

[Barbara]

"All I can say is I am sensitive to discrimination on any basis because I have experienced that upset."

[Barbara]

"Every now and then it helps to be a little deaf....That advice has stood me in good stead. Not simply in dealing with my marriage, but in dealing with my colleagues."

[Barbara]

"You can't have it all, all at once. Who - man or woman - has it all, all at once? Over my lifespan I think I have had it all. But in different periods of time things were rough."

[Barbara]

"I try to teach through my opinions, through my speeches, how wrong it is to judge people on the basis of what they look like, color of their skin, whether they're men or women."

[Barbara]

"If I had any talent in the world.....I would be a great diva."

[Barbara]

"If you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it...I had a life partner who thought my work was as important as his, and I think that made all the difference for me."


Ruth and Martin Ginsburg with their children Jane and James.

[Mario]

Exceptional advice. Thank you!

[Barbara]

Mario wrote: "Exceptional advice. Thank you!"

You're welcome. 😊🍀🌼

[Barbara]

"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."

[Barbara]

"[Justice O'Connor] said when you're up to chemotherapy, you do it on Friday afternoon. You'll get over it over the weekend, and you'll be able to come to the court on Monday."

[Barbara]

"Work-life balance was a term not yet coined in the years my children were young; and it is aptly descriptive of the time distribution I experienced."

[Barbara]

"You think about what would have happened....suppose I had gotten a job as a permanent associate. Probably I would have climbed the ladder and today I would be a retired partner."

[Barbara]

"So often in life, things that you regard as an impediment turn out be great good fortune."

[Barbara]

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

[Barbara]

"I think a law clerk told me about this Tumblr and also explained to me what 'Notorious RBG' was a parody on. And now my grandchildren love it and I try to keep abreast of the latest on the Tumblr....In fact I [have a large] supply of Notorious RBG T-shirts."😊💕💙

[Barbara]

"At my advanced age - I'm now an octogenarian - I'm constantly amazed by the number of people who want to take my picture."

[Barbara]

"We live in an age in which the fundamental principles to which we subscribe - liberty, equality and justice for all - are encountering extraordinary challenges, ... But it is also an age in which we can join hands with others who hold to those principles and face similar challenges."

[Barbara]

"I have several times said that the office I hold, now for more than 23 years, is the best and most consuming job a lawyer anywhere could have."

[Barbara]

"No one who is in business for profit can foist his or her beliefs on a workforce that includes many people who do not share those beliefs."