Ginsburg Dissent Quotes

Fight for the things that you care about. But do it in a way that will lead others to join you.

When the jabot with scalloped glass beads glitters flat against the top of RBG's black robe, it's bad news for liberals. That's her dissent collar.

RBG’s most famous words in the Hobby Lobby dissent could have appeared in any of her searing dissents: “The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield.

nascent, underfunded Supreme Court. Recent biographies of the great Chief Justice tell how John Marshall used the camaraderie of boardinghouse tables and common rooms, also madeira, to dispel dissent and achieve the one-voiced Opinion of the Court, which he usually composed and delivered himself. The unanimity John Marshall strived to maintain helped the swordless Third Branch fend off attacks from the political branches.9 Although Chief Justice Marshall strictly separated his Court and family life, he did not lack affection for his wife. In a letter from Philadelphia in 1797, John Marshall told Polly of his longing. “I like [the big city] well enough for a day or two,” he wrote Polly, “but I then

When RBG fretted over the first dry opinion the chief justice assigned her, O'Connor gave her a pep talk. As RBG read that opinion on the bench, O'Connor, who had dissented in the case, passed her a note. "This is your first opinion for the Court," she had written. "It is a fine one, I look forward to many more." Remembering the comfort that note gave her on such a nerve wracking day, RBG did the same for the next two women to join the court, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

I don’t see myself in the role of a great dissenter and I would much rather carry another mind even if it entails certain compromises,” RBG said at a roundtable on judging in 1985. “Of course there is a question of bedrock principle where I won’t compromise,” she added, but she had “learned a lot about other minds paying attention to people’s personalities in this job.

When Scalia dissents, he pours gasoline on the majority, lights a match, and stomps on the ashes.

To be like RBG in dissent, save your public anger for when there’s lots at stake and when you’ve tried everything else.

April 18, 2007: RBG launches her era of furious dissent with the abortion case Gonzales v. Carhart.

BUT PICK YOUR BATTLES RBG survived the indignities of pre-feminist life mostly by deciding that anger was counterproductive. “This wonderful woman whose statue I have in my chambers, Eleanor Roosevelt, said, ‘Anger, resentment, envy. These are emotions that just sap your energy,” RBG says. “They’re not productive and don’t get you anyplace, so get over it.’” To be like RBG in dissent, save your public anger for when there’s lots at stake and when you’ve tried everything else.