Quotes from Antonin Scalia

It was with characteristic foresight that George Washington declared: "I have always been persuaded, that the stability and success of the National Government and consequently the happiness of the people of the United States, would depend, in a considerable degree, on the interpretation and execution of its laws.

A Talmudic maxim instructs with respect to the Scripture: "Turn it over, and turn it over, for all is therein.

In the 1920s and 1930s Germany was the leader of the world in most areas you could name—the physical sciences, historical scholarship, music, philosophy, public education. The most sobering fact about the Holocaust is that it was there, and not in some backward, underdeveloped country, that it occurred.

asyndeton (absence of conjunction) is normally equivalent to syndeton (use of the conjunction and).

I think there is writing genius as well—which consists primarily, I think, of the ability to place oneself in the shoes of one's audience; to assume only what they assume; to anticipate what they anticipate; to explain what they need explained; to think what they must be thinking; to feel what they must be feeling.

Congress, we have held, does not alter the fundamental details of a regulatory scheme in vague terms or ancillary provisions - it does not, one might say, hide elephants in mouse-holes.

So where there is a conflict between a general provision and a specific one, whichever was enacted later might be thought to prevail. But that analysis disregards the principle behind the general/specific canon—namely, that the two provisions are not in conflict, but can exist in harmony. The specific provision does not negate the general one entirely, but only in its application to the situation that the specific provision covers. Hence the canon does apply to successive statutes.

But the general/ specific canon makes all the difference if the general provision has been enacted later.

Where there is no clear intention otherwise, a specific statute will not be controlled or nullified by a general one, regardless of the priority of enactment.

As we have said before, the fact that a statute can be 'applied in situations not expressly anticipated by Congress does not demonstrate ambiguity. It demonstrates breadth.

A specific statutory provision that contravenes a general constitutional injunction or prohibition is invalid.

The transformation of charity into legal entitlement has produced donors without love and recipients without gratitude.

My mind isn't shit! (Really!)

Oh God, get over it.

Expressio unius, also known as inclusio unius, is a Latin name for the communicative device known as negative implication.

Notwithstanding performs a function opposite that of subject to.

Notwithstanding anything herein to the contrary, a continuing-legal-education provider approved by the state bar may conduct seminars without fulfilling any other requirement." There may be nothing to the contrary anywhere in the document—even nothing that could be thought to be to the contrary. But the catchall notwithstanding is a fail-safe way of ensuring that the clause it introduces will absolutely, positively prevail.

What is the effect of failing to honor a mandatory provision's terms? That is an issue for a treatise on remedies, not interpretation.

precious metals.

The ejusdem generis canon asserts that a general phrase at the end of a list is limited to the same type of things (the generic category) that are found in the specific list.

E]jusdem generis . . . says that if a series of more than two items ends with a catch-all term that is broader than the category into which the preceding items fall but which those items do not exhaust, the catch-all term is presumably intended to be no broader than that category.

Following the general term with specifics can serve the function of making doubly sure that the broad (and intended-to-be-broad) general term is taken to include the specifics.

Being a good person begins with being a wise person. Then, when you follow your conscience, will you be headed in the right direction.

Why can't the state accede to the public's wishes?