Quotes by Clarence Thomas

“I dont believe in quotas. America was founded on a philosophy of individual rights, not group rights.”

“When I was a kid, we said that we were precluded from going to certain neighborhoods because of the color of our skin… Now the neighborhoods are the neighborhoods of ideas, you’re not supposed to be there because … of the color of your skin.””

“Today, now, it is time to move forward, a time to look for what is good in others, what is good in our country. It is time to see what we have in common, what we have to share as human beings and citizens.”

“There is some misunderstanding. We do not look any place. We do not recruit. We are passive. We look at what comes to us.”

“We hold that the program , as it appears to have been structured at the time (Harper) was placed on it, differed from parole in name only, ... and affirm the (appeals courts) decision.”

“He is a great man. There is nothing I could say to tease him.”

“Without performing legal acrobatics, I cannot make the instruction confusing. And I certainly cannot do the contortions necessary to find the Texas appellate courts decision objectively unreasonable.”

“Because the president, not the (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration) could authorize or not authorize cross-border operations from Mexican motor carriers, and because FMCSA has no discretion to prevent the entry of Mexican trucks, its EA did not need to consider the environmental effects arising from the entry,”

“It runs the risk of undermining the manner in which we consider the cases. Certainly it will change our proceedings. And I dont think for the better.”

My grandfather was a man, when he talked about freedom, his attitude was really interesting. His view was that you had obligations or you had responsibilities, and when you fulfilled those obligations or responsibilities, that then gave you the liberty to do other things.

Oh, I dont think Tom Sowell would tell anybody to join the administration. Thats not his style. But I think his attitude has always been if it had to be done hed prefer me to do it than somebody else.

Theres a difference between someone whos harsh and someone who is hard. Life was hard. You lived in the South, as my grandparents did, and you had to survive. That is hard. In order to respond to that, he had to become a hard man, with very hard rules, very hard discipline for himself, very hard days, hard work, et cetera.

Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot.

And I dont think that government has a role in telling people how to live their lives. Maybe a minister does, maybe your belief in God does, maybe theres another set of moral codes, but I dont think government has a role.

When you look at where the real problems are among minorities in our society, particularly blacks, its at the bottom. Its the people who are in school systems that dont educate, neighborhoods where there is a lot of crime, drugs, the whole bit.