94 result(s) for Thurgood Marshall Quotes.
"The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination."
"The United States is big-hearted but small-minded."
"The government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and major social transformations to attain the system of constitutional government and its respect for the freedoms and individual rights we hold as fundamental today."
"Barring a more inclusive system of representation in government, the constitution will soon become a relic of the past."
"The next time you put something in the constitution, you might as well write it in disappearing ink."
"An unprofitable thing is a Constitution in which the government makes the rules it is supposed to abide by."
"Breadlines are once again a sad reality in United States cities."
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"I wish I could say there never has been trouble between the races. I wish I could say there never will be."
"A child born to a Black mother in a state like Mississippi has the same rights as a white baby born to the wealthiest person in the United States."
"We cannot play ostrich. Democracy just cannot flourish amid fear. Liberty cannot bloom amid hate."
"It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the colored people a bad check, a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.'"
"When the chips are down and the Constitution is on the line, it is vital that the constitutional minority be secure in their rights."
"None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody - a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony, or a few nuns - bent down and helped us pick up our boots."
"You do what you think is right and let the law catch up."
"The United States has been called the melting pot of the world. But it seems to me that the colored man either missed getting into the pot or he got melted down."
"In the field of public education, the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place."
"A child born to a Black mother in a state like Mississippi, where, the moment it is born, is the child of a Mississippi sharecropper, the lowliest Negro. That is the true picture of the birth of the poor in America."
"The United States can have only one future - a future of equality. For in a world in which freedom is made dear because freedom is made difficult, Americans will not be denied."
"The past is prologue."
"The criminal law cannot be used as a sword to suppress freedom of expression, no matter how distasteful some may find that expression."
"The government made him a second-class citizen. It took away his security. It took away his job. It starved his family. It made it unfashionable to be friendly to him. But he came back to the land that he loved."
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"Those in power have never hesitated to exploit the deep-seated fears of many of the people of this country. The police, the FBI, HUAC, Mundt, and all their ilk have used fear as a weapon."
"We can play the game of history on the basis of facts, but what has brought us to this point is the scientific method of the social scientists. We are in the business of justice, not truth."
"The Fourteenth Amendment was passed only after a great struggle. Its main objectives were to keep the southern states from discriminating against the Negro race, and to establish the principal of the equality of all men. The vote on this amendment was a historic event."
"Negro boys and girls will have to... know that they will have to be good citizens, working with others to make a richer life for us all."
"I believe that peaceful protests, sit-ins, boycotts, voting, holding public office, are the foundations of success for the Negro. I believe in equal rights for all Americans. I believe that civil rights mean more than as some Negroes would say; that the white man cannot discriminate against them. I believe that the whites are entitled to exactly the same rights as the Negroes, and this is what I insist upon."
"Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy. Make it. Protect it. Pass it on."
"None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody – a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony or a few nuns – bent down and helped us pick up our boots."
"We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred, and the mistrust... We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better."
"In the application of the Fourteenth Amendment, our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens."
"I wish I could say that racism and prejudice were only distant memories. We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred and the mistrust... We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better."
"The measure of a country's greatness is its ability to retain compassion in time of crisis."
"The pressing question of the hour is whether or not we can create a society worthy of the human spirit."
"A child born to a Black mother in a state like Mississippi... has exactly the same rights as a white baby born to the wealthiest person in the United States. It's not true, but I challenge anyone to say it is not a goal worth working for."
"None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody... bent down and helped us pick up our boots."
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"It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive."
"The answer to injustice is not to silence the critic, but to end the injustice."
"We cannot play ostrich. Democracy just cannot flourish amid fear. Liberty cannot bloom amid hate. Justice cannot take root amid rage. America must get to work."
"It is simply not true that the U.S. has always been a bastion of freedom. It had slavery, which lasted until there was a civil war, wages wars, disasters. It is not true that the U.S. has always been a freer place."
"We must dissent from a government that has left its young without jobs, education or hope. We have a right to be angry and a cause to be angry."
"I would defy any social or moral scientist to indicate any principle of human relations that has been more beneficent than the 14th Amendment."
"The government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war, and major social transformations to attain it. But Lincoln's words gave the ideal a name: 'government of the people, by the people, for the people.' As a goal it has been worth everything it has cost."
"The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government and more freedom, a deep love of the law and a respect for tradition."
"The criminal law also recognizes the universal sentiment connecting the family, by prohibiting a parent from testifying against his child, or a child against his parents."
"I wish I could say that racism and prejudice were only distant memories. We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy."
"Lawlessness is lawlessness. Anarchy is anarchy is anarchy. Neither race nor color nor frustration is an excuse for either lawlessness or anarchy."
"It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at oneself through the eyes of others."
"We must never forget that the only real source of power that we as judges can tap is the respect of the people."
"None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody—a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony or a few nuns—bent down and helped us pick up our boots."
"In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute. We achieve through recognition."
"I have a lifetime appointment and I intend to serve it. I expect to die at 110, shot by a jealous husband."
"Negroes can never have all the rights so long as the gun is a weapon, and the gun can always be a weapon."
"I don't measure America by its achievement, but by its potential."
"The United States has set itself on the side of the terrorists and the torturers in the world."
"The United States has been called the most lawless country in the world. It's hard to avoid that judgement."
"When in Britain, I’m British. When in France, I’m French. When in Japan, I’m no longer available."
"The United States is a far less safe place with John Bolton in the world."
"Today's Constitution is a realistic document of freedom only because of several corrective amendments. Those amendments speak to a sense of decency and fairness that I and other Blacks cherish."
"The United States has been called not a melting pot but a salad bowl."
"A child born to a black mother in a state like Mississippi has exactly the same rights as a white baby born to the wealthiest person in the United States. It's not true, but I challenge anyone to say it is not a goal worth working for."
"Mere access to the courthouse doors does not by itself assure a proper functioning of the adversary process."
"History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure."
"I wish I could say that racism and prejudice were only distant memories. We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred, and the mistrust."
"A man can make what he wants of himself, if he truly believes that he must be ready for hard work and many heartbreaks."
"A child who is racially prejudiced typically is also politically prejudiced and morally prejudiced."
"The United States has no choice but to follow the inevitable trend of the sanctity of individual liberty; the basis on which it was founded."
"It is easy to say we should live together, and it is hard to put that idea into actual practice."
"The moral, spiritual, and physical, decline of a great nation can not be stopped by its lawyers, jets, and yachts."
"The truth is, we have not reached the pinnacle of racial equality in America."
"The fact of the matter is that this country was founded on an exchange of ideas. Pollution is the very antithesis of this."
"The question is not whether we are to be a nation to have schools, but it is whether they are going to be based on the principles of democracy."
"Justice means enforcing what is fair for all men, no less than those in the highest court of law."
"The greatest gift that this country has given us is our individual rights, which are enshrined in the Constitution and protected by the government."
"The only genuine source of law is the nation's core morals, based on fundamental beliefs that all men are created equal."
"In this country, we can stand up to any foe with strength, but we are always weakened when we stand against our basic principles."
"None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps."
"Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country."
"The measure of a country's greatness is its ability to retain compassion in times of crisis."
"I wish I could say that racism and prejudice were only distant memories."
"In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute."
"It does you no good to see the horrors every day and be all doom and gloom. You must face it with optimism."
"The United States has moved from a time when people were going on strike to demand better wages."
"Sometimes history takes things into its own hands."
"What is at stake is the integrity of our educational process."
"We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred, and the mistrust."
"This is a color, and you paint a picture."
"As long as I sit on the Supreme Court, I'm going to keep things running smoothly."
"A child born to a Black mother in a state like Mississippi has exactly the same rights as a white baby born to the wealthiest person in the United States."
"What is the quality of your intent?"
"History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency."
"False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil."
"Until we get equality in education, we won't have an equal society."
"The only way to exist is to believe in our own way of thinking."
"We only always try to get what America promises."
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