Samuel Alito Quotes

Arizonians are deeply proud of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's service to this country. She will always be remembered by Arizonans and all Americans as an extraordinary public servant.

[Sandra Day O'Connor] is a justice whose graciousness and sense of duty fuels her continued service, even agreeing to serve more than six months after her retirement date.

Justice [Sandra Day] O'Connor has been the critical decisive vote on many issues that go to the heart of who we are as a nation.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor serves as a model Supreme Court justice, widely recognized as a jurist with practical values, a sense of the consequences of the legal decisions being made by the Supreme Court.

In the job of a member of the Supreme Court of the United States, you're going to make decisions. You'll say things that some people are going to love them, some people are going to hate them. It's just part of the job. And so I respect the right of individuals to have strongly held opinions and to express those opinions in our country.

What is the purpose of public service? It's to solve problems for the people you represent and certainly in the United States Senate, thinking about your state and thinking about your country as well.

I have a responsibility to devote my energy to my country and my people.

My main ambition is to be of use to my country and my people.

Being attorney general has truly allowed me to be a voice for justice for the people of Illinois and oftentimes the country - and I love it.

The role of first lady brings with it unique opportunities to help people across the country and around the world.

As we have seen from Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's example, even one justice can profoundly alter the meaning of those words for our citizens. Even one justice can deeply affect the rights and liberties of the American people.

Not that I've always agreed with what she said - far from it - but Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has been properly lauded, in my view, as a judge who approached her duties with open-mindedness and with a sensitivity that affects her decisions would have on everyday, ordinary people.

The Supreme Court raises the question, what kind of country will we be? The Supreme Court needs to stand on the side of the American people, not on the side of the powerful, wealthy.

Our country is being radically altered, step by step, by Justices who are not following any law.

The American people deserve a Supreme Court justice who can demonstrate that he or she will not be beholden to the president, but only to the law.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor brought critical qualities to the high court that not everybody thinks are qualities - I happen to think they are - her pragmatism and her state craft.

The appointment of the next Supreme Court justice must be made in the people's interest and in the nation's interest, not in the interest of any partisan faction.

I've asked Justice Clarence Thomas to administer the Oath of Office, which I'm incredibly honored that he accepted as he's in his 25th year on the Supreme Court and has developed an extraordinary judicial record.

I wonder if there's just a sense that we have nothing to learn from any Supreme Court justice, including the great Chief Justice John Marshall.

I am a judge born, raised, and proud of being a Jew. The demand for justice runs through the entirety of the Jewish tradition. I hope, in my years on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, I will have the strength and the courage to remain constant in the service of that demand.

It was young people who stubbornly insisted on justice, stubbornly refused to accept the world as it is that transformed not just the country but transformed the world.

The thing I'd want people to say about me is that, in some way, I helped bring the Senate and the Congress back to what it used to be, the people's branch of government, doing things that made a difference in people's lives. I have devoted my life to government.

Americans revere both the Constitution and an independent Court that applies the document's provisions. The Court has done many excellent things in our history, and few people are willing to see its power broken. The difficulty with all proposals to respond to the Court when it behaves unconstitutionally is that they would create a power to destroy the Court's essential work as well.

Say good-bye to a Supreme Court that is truly open and balanced and looking out for the American people. Instead the Republicans just want to capture a right-wing court for another whole generation.

People whose terms go for five years or longer, like FCC commissioners. That's a higher standard. Then district judges, who are appointed for a lifetime but can be overruled. Then Court of Appeals judges. They're not the highest level, but they're almost the final word. And then, of course, the Supreme Court.