Antonin Scalia Quotes

For those whose exclusive norm of constitutional judging is merely fair reading of language applied to facts objectively viewed, 'Brown' must either be flat-out wrong or a very mystifying decision.

The words of the Constitution ... are so unrestricted by their intrinsic meaning or by their history or by tradition or by prior decisions that they leave the individual Justice free, if indeed they do not compel him, to gather meaning not from reading the Constitution but from reading life.

Much of the Constitution is remarkably simple and straightforward - certainly as compared to the convoluted reasoning of judges and law professors discussing what is called 'Constitutional law,' much of which has no basis in that document....The real question [for judicial nominees] is whether that nominee will follow the law or succumb to the lure of 'a living constitution,' 'evolving standards' and other lofty words meaning judicial power to reshape the law to suit their own personal preferences.

A judicial activist is a judge who interprets the Constitution to mean what it would have said if he, instead of the Founding Fathers, had written it.

I would appoint judges that interpreted the Constitution rather than invented it, understood the difference between being a judge and being a legislator.

Originalism says that when you consult the text, you give it the meaning it had when it was adopted, not some later modern meaning.

You want to know what judicial activism is? Judicial activism is judges imposing their policy preferences on the words of the Constitution.

The [Supreme] Court did not interpret the Constitution—the court amended it.

The real difficulty is not with the Constitution but with the judges who interpret it.

We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is.

Original intent is a necessary fiction that jurists have invented to get a handle on the Constitution.

Conservatives like to insist that their judges are strict constructionists, giving the Constitution and statutes their precise meaning and no more, while judges like Ms. Sotomayor are activists. But there is no magic right way to interpret terms like 'free speech' or 'due process' - or potato chip.

[T]here is not a syllable in the plan under consideration which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution.

The Constitution is what the judges say it is.

If Americans loved judicial activism, liberals wouldn't be lying about what it is. Judicial activism means making up constitutional rights in order to strike down laws the justices don't like based on their personal preferences. It's not judicial activism to strike down laws because they violate the Constitution.

The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice. I have no fear of constitutional amendments properly adopted, but I do fear the rewriting of the Constitution by judges under the guise of interpretation.

We may have lured judges into roaming at large in the constitutional field.

FDR's justices were allies while he was alive, but after he died, they developed four totally different theories of what the Constitution is, two of which are considered conservative and two of which are considered liberal.

We know that this man has a proven record of being a 'strict constructionist.' Our President has given us his word that he will interpret the Constitution rather than make new laws from the bench.

It is time... to end the long-standing and unproductive methodological debate over 'originalism' versus 'dynamism' or 'evolution' and focus instead on how, as a substantive matter, we should interpret the Constitution in the twenty-first century, and what it has to say on questions unimaginable to our eighteenth-century Framers.

Do judges follow the Constitution? Well, Yes and No. They follow the Constitution as they understand it.

Constitutions are interpreted differently from statutes.

The constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.

The Supreme Court today is plagued by a vision of the Constitution which is cramped and narrow.

A decision reflects judicial restraint if it upholds practices under constitutional attack. A decision reflects judicial activism if it invalidates practices under constitutional attack.