Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The enormous difference between fighting gender discrimination as opposed to race discrimination is good people immediately perceive race discrimination as evil and intolerable. But when I talked about sex-based discrimination, I got the response, 'What are you talking about? Women are treated ever so much better than men!

Women will have achieved true equality when men share with them the responsibility of bringing up the next generation.

My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent

She never envisioned a legal career for me, but she did think it was very important that I be able to support myself, and I think she would be pleased to see what has become of me.

Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance one's ability to persuade.

In the '50s, too many women, even though they were very smart, they tried to make the man feel that he was brainier. It was a sad thing.

I think Mozart's operas 'The Marriage of Figaro' and 'Don Giovanni' are the two most perfect ever written. The music is magical.

In the course of a marriage, one accommodates the other.

Religious organizations exist to foster the interests of persons subscribing to the same religious faith. Not so of for-profit corporations. Workers who sustain the operations of those corporations commonly are not drawn from one religious community.

It is not like I have gone crazy, I just don't want to take any chances. You never know what could happen.

My mother told me two things constantly. One was to be a lady and the other was to be independent, and the law was something most unusual for those times because for most girls growing up in the '40s, the most important degree was not your B.A. but your M.R.S.

Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that changed their abortion laws before Roe are not going to change back. So we have a policy that only affects poor women, and it can never be otherwise.

I'm a very strong believer in listening and learning from others.

My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent.

Dissents speak to a future age.

It's a facet of the gay rights movement that people don't think about enough. Why suddenly marriage equality? Because it wasn't until 1981 that the court struck down Louisiana's 'head and master rule,' that the husband was head and master of the house.

The concern was that if a woman was doing gender equality, her chances of making it to tenure in the law school were diminished. It was considered frivolous.

The state controlling a woman would mean denying her full autonomy and full equality.