Top 80 Sandra Day O'Connor Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Do the best you can in every task, no matter how unimportant it may seem at the time. No one learns more about a problem than the person at the bottom.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

2. “Unfortunately civility is hard to codify or legislate, but you know it when you see it. It’s possible to disagree without being disagreeable.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

3. “We don’t accomplish anything in this world alone.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

4. “This chance will stand before you only once.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

5. “Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

6. “I don’t know that there are any short cuts to doing a good job.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

7. “In order to cultivate a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry, it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

8. “Be aware that even before you have reached your ultimate professional destination, if you always strive for excellence, you can and should have a substantial impact on the world in which you live.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

9. “Young women today often have very little appreciation for the real battles that took place to get women where they are today in this country. I don’t know how much history young women today know about those battles.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

10. “The power I exert on the court depends on the power of the power of my arguments, not my gender.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

11. “Commitment to the rule of law provides a basic assurance that people can know what to expect whether what they do is popular or unpopular at the time.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

12. “Parents should continue to become more involved with their communities, and more involved in their children’s education.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

13. “Society as a whole benefits immeasurably from a climate in which all persons, regardless of race or gender, may have the opportunity to earn respect, responsibility, advancement and remuneration based on ability.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

14. “In my work a good library is essential. It enables me to learn the background and previous discussions of the various issues I am called upon to decide. It provides the stability and continuity for the rule of law.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

15. “I think the important thing about my appointment is not that I will decide cases as a woman, but that I am a woman who will get to decide cases.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

16. “I care very much about women and their progress. I didn’t go march in the streets, but when I was in the Arizona Legislature, one of the things that I did was to examine every single statute in the state of Arizona to pick out the ones that discriminated against women and get them changed.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

17. “We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

18. “Even in my own time and in my own life, I have witnessed a revolution.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

19. “If I stumbled badly in doing the job, I think it would have made life more difficult for women, and that was a great concern of mine and still is.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

20. “The proper role of the judiciary is one of interpreting and applying the law, not making it.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

21. “Yes, I will bring the understanding of a woman to the Court, but I doubt that alone will affect my decisions.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

22. “As a citizen, you need to know how to be a part of it, how to express yourself – and not just by voting.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

23. “Slaying the dragon of delay is no sport for the short-winded.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

24. “The family unit plays a critical role in our society and in the training of the generation to come.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

25. “I think I learned to appreciate and treasure each day, because you don’t know how many you’re going to be given.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

26. “I finally gave up my little law practice and stayed home for about three years. You have to do what you can to keep the family going. But I wanted to get back to work. So I got another babysitter and went to work as an Assistant Attorney General.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

27. “We pay a price when we deprive children of the exposure to the values, principles, and education they need to make them good citizens.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

28. “The framers of the Constitution were so clear in the federalist papers and elsewhere that they felt an independent judiciary was critical to the success of the nation.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

29. “Having family responsibilities and concerns just has to make you a more understanding person.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

30. “We hold that the reckless disregard for human life implicit in knowingly engaging in criminal activity known to carry a grave risk of death represents a highly culpable mental state that may be taken into account in making a capital sentencing judgment not inevitable, lethal result.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

31. “I had become increasingly concerned in recent years about the lack of civics education in our nation’s schools. In recent years, the schools have stopped teaching it. And it’s unfortunate.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

32. “The courts of this country should not be the places where resolution of disputes begins. They should be the places where the disputes end after alternative methods of resolving disputes have been considered and tried.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

33. “The more education a woman has, the wider the gap between men’s and women’s earnings for the same work.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

34. “It matters enormously to a successful democratic society like ours that we have three branches of government, each with some independence and some control over the other two. Thats set out in the Constitution.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

35. “For both men and women the first step in getting power is to become visible to others, and then to put on an impressive show... As women achieve power, the barriers will fall. As society sees what women can do, as WOMEN see what women can do, there will be more women out there doing things, and we’ll all be better off for it.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

36. “I do not believe it is the function of the judiciary to step in and change the law because the times have changed. I do well understand the difference between legislating and judging. As a judge, it is not my function to develop public policy.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

37. “Justice Ginsburg is a very competent justice, and it is a joy to have her on the court, but particularly for me it is a pleasure to have a second woman on the court.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

38. “There was no hostility at the court when I arrived.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

39. “We have a complex system of government. You have to teach it to every generation.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

40. “I think we may be seeing the beginnings of a resurgence of civic-mindedness in this country. Hopefully the younger generations, which came out in record numbers during the last presidential election, will pass their enthusiasm on to their children.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

41. “I loved my husband very much, and it was heartbreaking to have him develop Alzheimer’s disease, and to stand by and watch him decline in his ability to take care of himself.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

42. “How dare you make my life a felony.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

43. “If parents instill a sense of civic-mindedness – and there is no better way to do that than by example – their children will probably follow.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

44. “Each of us brings to our job, whatever it is, our lifetime of experience and our values.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

45. “So how as a nation can we sit around and eat Mexican food, and drink beer and make friends? That’s the question. If we can do that on a broader scale, I think we’ll come out of it all right.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

46. “Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

47. “The No Child Left Behind Program was an incentive to the schools to get their kids up to snuff on math and science and reading.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

48. “You have citizens who don’t understand how government works and they’re kind of soured on it. All they do is criticize. They have no idea that they can make things happen.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

49. “The freedom to criticize judges and other public officials is necessary to a vibrant democracy.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor

50. “I wanted to be a cattle rancher when I was young, because it was what I knew and I loved it.”

— Sandra Day O'Connor