57 Quotes by William Rehnquist

A judge's disposition should be about evenly balanced between sail and anchor. He cannot be anchored to the past mechanically, but he ought not be moved by every puff of novel doctrine.

It is always possible for the court to overreach its proper bounds and perhaps declare a lot of laws unconstitutional and frustrate the will of the majority in a way that it ought not be frustrated.

If you could say of any one individual that the court as an institution is the length and shadow of that individual, surely it would be John Marshall.

Perhaps you should say there should be mandatory retirement even of members of the court, members of the federal judiciary. I'm sure there can be questions about whether one does as good work when you get into your - you know, I'm 67.

We strike down the floating buffer zones around people entering and leaving the clinics because they burden more speech than is necessary to serve the relevant government interests,

Miranda announced a constitutional rule that Congress may not supersede legislatively.

No exact formula can dictate a resolution in fact-intensive cases such as this,

But the greatest injury of the 'wall' notion is its mischievous diversion of judges from the actual intentions of the drafters of the Bill of Rights. . . . The "wall of separation between church and state" is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.

He was a man of character and dedication.