How fortunate I was to be alive and a lawyer when, for the first time in United States history, it became possible to urge, successfully, before legislatures and courts, the equal-citizenship stature of women and men as a fundamental constitutional principle.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

You can disagree without being disagreeable.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

You can't have it all, all at once. Who - man or woman - has it all, all at once? Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all. But in different periods of time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

There's nothing in the Constitution that says the President stops being President in his last year.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

We have the oldest written constitution still in force in the world, and it starts out with three words, 'We, the people.'

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

If you're going to change things, you have to be with the people who hold the levers.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

A gender line... helps to keep women not on a pedestal, but in a cage.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

So that's the dissenter's hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Frankly, I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I try to teach through my opinions, through my speeches, how wrong it is to judge people on the basis of what they look like, color of their skin, whether they're men or women.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I think unconscious bias is one of the hardest things to get at.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg