Ruth Bader Ginsburg

“I've had two cancer bouts in my years on the Court, and the first one, Justice O'Connor told me, 'Now, you do the chemotherapy on Friday because you'll get over it during the weekend and you can be back in court on Monday.'”

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

“You can't have it all all at once. Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all, but in given periods in time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.”

“Dissents speak to a future age.”

“Each part of my life provided respite from the other and gave me a sense of proportion that classmates trained only on law studies lacked.”

“One aspect of appellate judging is we have to give reasons for all of our decisions. And when you sit down and try to write it out, sometimes you find that your first judgment wasn't the right one.”

“I can't imagine what this place would be - I can't imagine what the country would be - with Donald Trump as our president.”

“We still have many neighborhoods that are racially identified. We still have many schools that even though the days of state-enforced segregation are gone, segregation because of geographical boundaries remains.”

“If you want to influence people, you want them to accept your suggestions, you don't say, 'You don't know how to use the English language,' or 'How could you make that argument?' It will be welcomed much more if you have a gentle touch than if you are aggressive.”

“The experience I don't want to see repeated occurred in 'Bush v. Gore.' The Court divided five to four. There were four separate dissents, and that confused the press. In fact, some of the reporters announced that the decision was seven-two. There was no time to get together.”

“I think daughters can change the perception of their fathers.”

“I don't see that my majority opinions are going to be undone.”

“The Democrats do fine in presidential elections; their problem is they can't get out the vote in the midterm elections.”

“Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”

“All respect for the office of the presidency aside, I assumed that the obvious and unadulterated decline of freedom and constitutional sovereignty, not to mention the efforts to curb the power of judicial review, spoke for itself.”

“When I graduated from law school in 1959, there wasn't a single woman on any federal bench. It wouldn't be a realistic ambition for a woman to want to become a federal judge. It wasn't realistic until Jimmy Carter became our president.”

“In truth, I did enjoy the benefits of a Harvard connection.”

“Marty was an extraordinary person. Of all the boys I had dated, he was the only one who really cared that I had a brain. And he was always - well, making me feel that I was better than I thought I was.”

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

“If you just needed the skills to pass the bar, two years would be enough. But if you think of law as a learned profession, then a third year is an opportunity for, on the one hand, public service and practice experience, but on the other, also to take courses that round out the law that you didn't have time to do.”