Antonin Scalia QUOTES

3 " You're looking at me as though I'm weird. My God! Are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the Devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the Devil! It's in the Gospels! You travel in circles that are so, so removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the Devil! Most of mankind has believed in the Devil, for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the Devil. "

― Antonin Scalia

4 " It is myopic to base sweeping change on the narrow experience of a few years. "

― Antonin Scalia , Scalia Dissents: Writings of the Supreme Court's Wittiest, Most Outspoken Justice

5 " This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent. "

― Antonin Scalia

6 " Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry
out a death sentence properly reached. "

― Antonin Scalia

7 " It is in no way remarkable, and in no way a vindication of textual evolutionism, that taking power from the people and placing it instead with a judicial aristocracy can produce some creditable results that democracy might not achieve. The same can be said of monarchy and totalitarianism. But once a nation has decided that democracy, with all its warts, is the best system of government, the crucial question becomes which theory of textual interpretation is compatible with democracy. Originalism unquestionably is. Nonoriginalism, by contrast, imposes on society statutory prescriptions that were never democratically adopted. "

― Antonin Scalia , Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts

8 " A Bill of Rights that means what the majority wants it to mean is worthless. "

― Antonin Scalia

9 " Tyrannies have long lists of rights. What they do not have is structural restraints on the power of government. "

― Antonin Scalia

10 " Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world. "

― Antonin Scalia

11 " Grant Gilmore: “In Heaven there will be no law, and the lion will lie down with the lamb….In Hell there will be nothing but law, and due process will be meticulously observed. "

― Antonin Scalia , Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived

12 " I attack ideas. I don't attack people. Some very good people have some very bad ideas. "

― Antonin Scalia

13 " Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world. "

― Antonin Scalia

14 " argle-bargle. "

― Antonin Scalia

15 " In 1905, the Supreme Court of the United States applied the rule to the country’s founding document: “The Constitution is a written instrument. As such its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when adopted it means now. "

― Antonin Scalia , Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts

16 " Words change meaning over time, and often in unpredictable ways. Queen Anne is said (probably apocryphally) to have commented about Sir Christopher Wren's architecture at St. Paul's Cathedral that it was "awful, artificial, and amusing"—by which she meant that it was awe-inspiring, highly artistic, and thought-provoking. "

― Antonin Scalia , Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts

17 " By judicial conservative, I mean a judge who does not advance any political or policy preferences, but whose approach to constitutional and statutory interpretation involves fidelity to the text of the Constitution and adherence to the original understanding of that document or to the intent of its drafters. "

― Antonin Scalia , Scalia Dissents: Writings of the Supreme Court's Wittiest, Most Outspoken Justice

18 " Jiggery-pokery. "

― Antonin Scalia

19 " As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes put it: “We do not inquire what the legislature meant; we ask only what the statute means. "

― Antonin Scalia , Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts

20 " Between the Restoration and the Glorious Revolution, the Stuart Kings Charles II and James II succeeded in using select militias loyal to them to suppress political dissidents, in part by disarming their opponents. Under the auspices of the 1671 Game Act, for example, the Catholic James II had ordered general disarmaments of regions home to his Protestant enemies. These experiences caused Englishmen to be extremely wary of concentrated military forces run by the state and to be jealous of their arms. They accordingly obtained an assurance from William and Mary, in the Declaration of Right (which was codified as the English Bill of Rights), that Protestants would never be disarmed: “That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defense suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law.” This right has long been understood to be the predecessor to our Second Amendment. It was clearly an individual right, having nothing whatever to do with service in a militia. To be sure, it was an individual right not available to the whole population, given that it was restricted to Protestants, and like all written English rights it was held only against the Crown, not Parliament. But it was secured to them as individuals, according to “libertarian political principles,” not as members of a fighting force. "

― Antonin Scalia , Scalia's Court: A Legacy of Landmark Opinions and Dissents

1
2
3
4
5