Quotes About Scalia

There's an assault on human sexuality, as Judge Scalia said, they've taken sides in the culture war and on top of that if we have a democracy, the democratic processes should be that we can elect representatives who will share our point of view and vote those things into law.

Justice Scalia and I served together on the D.C. Circuit. So his votes are not surprising to me. What I like about him is that he's very funny and very smart.

It has been hard to get my head around how Justice Antonin Scalia rationalizes his decisions. His body blow to the Voting Rights Act was a head scratcher, but at least he was calm when he attempted to justify his odd logic.

I attack ideas. I don't attack people. And 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.

What is a moderate interpretation of the text? Halfway between what it really means and what you'd like it to mean?

Though the critics are loud and the temptations to join them may be many, mark me down too as a believer that the traditional account of the judicial role Justice Scalia defended will endure.

Many progressives understand Scalia, and other conservative judges, in crassly political terms - as opponents of affirmative action, abortion, gun control, and campaign finance legislation. But what Scalia cared most about was clear, predictable rules, laid down in advance.

Justice Scalia was usually particularly challenging to me at oral argument, but I so respected his intellect and commitment to the pursuit of truth.

I think justice Scalia is really the gold standard of what a justice should be. Somebody, regardless of how he feels on an issue, is going to look at the text of the Constitution, look at the text of the law, and make his judgment.

What makes an American…is not the name or the blood or even the place of birth, but the belief in the principles of freedom and equality that this country stands for.

Another characteristic of Homo hibernicus—I know you would be annoyed if I did not mention it—is quickness of intellect. Now I must admit that on this point you Irish may be better judges of yourselves than an outsider like me would be. Because the Irish have all sorts of ways of seeming to be knowledgeable when they are not. One, of course, is lying.

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.

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.

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

Justice Scalia is predictable. He can be counted on to come down with a conservative opinion, and generally, to bring Justice Clarence Thomas with him.

I attack ideas. I don't attack people. Some very good people have some very bad ideas.

Justice Scalia wrote for the Court that former attorney general Ashcroft was protected by qualified immunity because there was no clearly established law that his conduct was unconstitutional.

During the Court's first oral argument, Scalia asked so many questions that Powell turned to Thurgood Marshall, who sat beside him on the bench, and whispered, "Do you think he knows the rest of us are here?

In 2015, an opera opened about me and Justice Antonin Scalia. It's called 'Scalia/Ginsburg.' The composer, Derrick Wang, has degrees in music from Harvard and Yale. Enrolled in law school, he was reading dueling opinions by me and Justice Scalia and decided he could compose an appealing comic opera from them.

It's not up to the courts to invent new minorities that get special protections.

Justice Scalia was a lion of the law. Agree or disagree with him, all of his colleagues on the bench shared his wisdom and his humor. And like them, I miss him.

If you are sentenced to torture for a crime, yes, that is a cruel punishment. But the mere fact that somebody is tortured is - is unlawful under - under our statutes, but the Constitution happens not to address it, just as it does not address a lot of other horrible things.