American - Judge | January 27, 1955 -
People, for reasons of their own, often fail to do things that would be good for them or good for society.
John Roberts
GoodPeopleSocietyOwnThingsFail
I go to the opera. It's mostly my wife that's a bigger fan, I'd say, than I am. I like the big opera. I want a lot of people on stage, elephants and marching stuff, and the modern stuff I don't care for.
WifeI AmPeopleCareGoWant
Judges have to have the humility to recognize that they operate within a system of precedent, shaped by other judges equally striving to live up to the judicial oath.
LiveHumilityStrivingJudgesWithin
I don't type on the computer or edit. Law students who went to law school really just a couple years after I did were brought up all on the computers and that's how they do it, but I was still part of the older school.
SchoolLawComputersYearsUpJust
A justice is not like a law professor, who might say, 'This is my theory... and this is what I'm going to be faithful to and consistent with,' and in twenty years will look back and say, 'I had a consistent theory of the First Amendment as applied to a particular area.'
JusticeLawLookBackSayWill
I think judicial temperament is a willingness to step back from your own committed views of the correct jurisprudential approach and evaluate those views in terms of your role as a judge. It's the difference between being a judge and being a law professor.
StepLawThinkJudgeBackOwn
There's a lot of the Midwest and the West in Justice Rehnquist's approach to constitutional law. And by that I mean a recognition that people know pretty well how to govern themselves, that government that is closest to the people is apt to be more responsive to their legitimate concerns and needs.
JusticeGovernmentPeopleLawKnow
While some of the tales of woe emanating from the court are enough to bring tears to the eyes, it is true that only Supreme Court justices and schoolchildren are expected to and do take the entire summer off.
EyesTearsEnoughSummerTrueBring
It is a great thing about having young children, is that they don't really care whether you're the chief justice or whatever, and they do make sure that you have a good perspective on life and what's important.
LifeGoodChildrenGreatJustice
Anytime you get nine people together, whether it's at a party or it's in the conference room of the Supreme Court, you do have to maintain some order, or it does kind of degenerate into squabbling pretty quickly.
TogetherPeopleYouPartyKindRoom
It's sobering to think of the seventeen chief justices; certainly a solid majority of them have to be characterized as failures. The successful ones are hard to number.
ThinkHardSuccessfulChiefSolid
A chief justice's authority is really quite limited, and the dynamic among all the justices is going to affect whether he can accomplish much or not. There is this convention of referring to the Taney Court, the Marshall Court, the Fuller Court, but a chief justice has the same vote that everyone else has.
JusticeAccomplishVoteAuthority
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