If I have brought any message today, it is this: 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
The Court today completes the process of converting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 from a guarantee that race or sex will not be the basis for often will. – Antonin Scalia
The American people have determined that the good to be derived from capital punishment – in deterrence, and perhaps most of all in the meting out of condign justice for horrible crimes – outweighs the risk of error. – Antonin Scalia
I attack ideas. I don’t attack people. And some very good people have some very bad ideas. And if you can’t separate the two, you gotta get another day job. You don’t want to be a judge. At least not a judge on a multi-member panel. – Antonin Scalia
The Constitution that I interpret and apply is not living, but dead, or as I prefer to call it, enduring. It means, today, not what current society, much less the court, thinks it ought to mean, but what it meant when it was adopted. – Antonin Scalia
If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things? – Antonin Scalia
Burning the flag is a form of expression. Speech doesn’t just mean written words or oral words. It could be semaphore. And burning a flag is a symbol that expresses an idea – I hate the government, the government is unjust, whatever. – Antonin Scalia
You could have 50 different states having 50 different regulations… until they were all litigated out. – Antonin Scalia
If you are sentenced to torture for a crime, yes, that is a cruel punishment. But the mere fact that somebody is tortured is – is unlawful under – under our statutes, but the Constitution happens not to address it, just as it does not address a lot of other horrible things. – Antonin Scalia
I used to say that the Constitution is not a living document. It’s dead, dead, dead. But I’ve gotten better. I no longer say that. The truth is that the Constitution is not one that morphs. It’s an enduring Constitution, not a changing Constitution. That is what I’ve meant when I’ve said that the Constitution is dead. – Antonin Scalia
In a big family the first child is kind of like the first pancake. If it’s not perfect, that’s okay, there are a lot more coming along. – Antonin Scalia
What is a moderate interpretation of the text? Halfway between what it really means and what you’d like it to mean? – Antonin Scalia
It’s absolutely clear that whatever cruel and unusual punishments may – may mean with regard to future things, such as death by injection or the electric chair, it’s clear that – that the death penalty, in and of itself, is not considered cruel and unusual punishment. – Antonin Scalia
By formally declaring anyone opposed to same-sex marriage an enemy of human decency, the majority arms well every challenger to a state law restricting marriage to its traditional definition. – Antonin Scalia
I would not like to be replaced by someone who immediately sets about undoing what I’ve tried to do for 25-26 years. – Antonin Scalia
But I’m not pro death penalty. I – I’m just anti the notion that it is not a matter for democratic choice, that it has been taken away from the democratic choice of the people by a provision of the Constitution. – Antonin Scalia
My view is regardless of whether you think prohibiting abortion is good or whether you think prohibiting abortion is bad, regardless of how you come out on that, my only point is the Constitution does not say anything about it. It leaves it up to democratic choice. – Antonin Scalia
A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable. – Antonin Scalia
If there’s anything you absolutely hate, why, it must be unconstitutional. Or, if there’s anything you absolutely have to have, it must be required by the Constitution. That’s where we are. That is utterly mindless. – Antonin Scalia
