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.

Meaning of the quote

Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court, was happy to have Justice Ginsburg join her as the second woman on the court. O'Connor thought Ginsburg was a very skilled and capable justice, and it made O'Connor feel good to have another woman on the Supreme Court with her.

About Sandra Day O’Connor

Sandra Day O’Connor was the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. She was a moderate conservative and a swing vote, known for her influential opinions on landmark cases. Despite her conservative leanings, O’Connor occasionally sided with the Court’s liberal members, and she was regarded as one of the most powerful women in the world during her time on the bench.

More about the author

More quotes from Sandra Day O’Connor

The members of the court were just delighted to have a ninth member – male or female. They were all kind and welcoming.

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

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

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

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

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

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

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

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

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

The fact is, we are a nine-member court that sits on cases.

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

My concern was whether I could do the job of a justice well enough to convince the nation that my appointment was the right move.

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

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

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

It is difficult to discern a serious threat to religious liberty from a room of silent, thoughtful schoolchildren.

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

There was no hostility at the court when I arrived.

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

Most high courts in other nations do not have discretion, such as we enjoy, in selecting the cases that the high court reviews. Our court is virtually alone in the amount of discretion it has.

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

I’m a judge. It seemed to me that it was critical to try to take action to stem the criticism and help people understand that in the constitutional framework, it’s terribly important not to have a system of retaliation against decisions people don’t like.

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

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

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

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

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

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

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

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

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

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

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

Statutes authorizing unreasonable searches were the core concern of the framers of the 4th Amendment.

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

The abortion cases produced an enormous amount of mail to my chambers, vastly more than to the other chambers, I am sure. I sometimes thought there wasn’t a woman in the United States who didn’t write me a letter on one side or the other of that issue.

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

Occasionally we have to interpret an international treaty – one, perhaps, affecting airlines and liability for injury to passengers or damage to goods. Then, of course, we have to look to the precedents of other member nations in resolving issues.

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

We don’t accomplish anything in this world alone… and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one’s life and all the weavings of individual threads form one to another that creates something.

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

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

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

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

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

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

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

The Establishment Clause prohibits government from making adherence to a religion relevant in any way to a person’s standing in the political community.

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

It is a measure of the framers’ fear that a passing majority might find it expedient to compromise 4th Amendment values that these values were embodied in the Constitution itself.

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

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

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

My hope is that 10 years from now, after I’ve been across the street at work for a while, they’ll all be glad they gave me that wonderful vote.

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

My sense is that jurists from other nations around the world understand that our court occupies a very special place in the American system, and that the court is rather well regarded in comparison, perhaps, to their own.

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

What was a problem was the excessive amount of media attention to the appointment of the first woman and everything she did. Everywhere that Sandra went, the press was sure to go. And that got tiresome; it was stressful.

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

A moment of silence is not inherently religious.

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

When I went to law school, which after all was back in the dark ages, we never looked beyond our borders for precedents. As a state court judge, it never would have occurred to me to do so, and when I got to the Supreme Court, it was very much the same. We just didn’t do it.

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

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

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

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. That’s set out in the Constitution.

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

Historically courts in this country have been insulated. We do not look beyond our borders for precedents.

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

Despite the encouraging and wonderful gains and the changes for women which have occurred in my lifetime, there is still room to advance and to promote correction of the remaining deficiencies and imbalances.

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

I need to retire from retirement.

Sandra Day O’Connor

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006

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

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006