John Paul Stevens

“Colonial history contains many examples of firearm regulations in urban areas that imposed obstacles to their use for protection of the home.”

“I'm a person who plays Ping-Pong once in a while.”

“During my years as a practicing lawyer, it just was part of your study of what Congress was trying to say in their statutes. I never really considered judges or scholars as either those who used legislative history or those who were opposed to it until after I got on the court.”

“I have been opposed to ceremonies at the White House. It gives the impression that the court is subordinate to the executive, which I think is quite wrong.”

“District of Columbia v. Heller, which recognized an individual right to possess a firearm under the Constitution, is unquestionably the most clearly incorrect decision that the Supreme Court announced during my tenure on the bench.”

“I am not a fan of President Trump, I should say. I wouldn't try to comment on every particular issue in which we disagree, but there are plenty of them.”

“All I can say is I did the best I could, and I didn't do well enough on many occasions.”

“The practice of executing such offenders is a relic of the past and is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency in a civilized society.”

“I always prided myself on my ability to choose good clerks, and one of the key elements was whether I thought I would like the person.”

“They may not be conscripted against their will as the foot soldiers in a federal crusade.”

“It is not our job to apply laws that have not yet been written.”

“When I signed on to letting the death penalty back in, I thought the procedural protections against executing an innocent person were stronger than they turned out to be.”

“While money is used to finance speech, money is not speech.”

“Of course, when I joined the Navy and when I took up the correspondence course in cryptography, I had to sign an oath that I would never reveal what sort of work I was involved in. It was only some years after the war that Congress passed a statute relieving me of that obligation.”

“It almost seems I was writing two separate books, the first one about the time before I went on the court and the second one about the many, many terms I was on the court.”

“If you're interested in the job and in the kind of work that's done, you have to have an interest in who's going to fill your shoes.”

“I think maybe the people in elected positions are more interested in preserving their jobs than in doing the best job possible.”

“When I joined the Supreme Court in 1975, both state and federal judges accepted the Court's unanimous decision in United States v. Miller as having established that the Second Amendment's protection of the right to bear arms was possessed only by members of the militia and applied only to weapons used by the militia.”

“Public officials, including state legislators, have a duty to act impartially.”

“For over 200 years after the adoption of the Second Amendment, it was uniformly understood as not placing any limit on either federal or state authority to enact gun control legislation.”