Scalia Speaks Quotes

“Grant Gilmore: “In Heaven there will be no law, and the lion will lie down with the lamb….In Hell there will be nothing but law, and due process will be meticulously observed.”
― Antonin Scalia, Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived

“the triad of human perfection”: knowledge, judgment, and character.”
― Antonin Scalia, Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived

“The judge as legislator has also not been good for democracy. When the vocation of a judge is reduced to simply selecting the best rule, remarkable power is placed in the hands of a few persons who are barely accountable for their decisions. In my country, most judges are given life tenure, and it is almost impossible to get a judge impeached. This was originally designed to give judges some insulation from the public indignation that often accompanies unpopular decisions. But when the vocation of a judge is more akin to that of a lawmaker, such insulation seems remarkably inapt. Moreover, there is no reason to”
― Antonin Scalia, Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived

“Our appointment and confirmation process has, in other words, evolved into a mini-plebiscite on the meaning of the Constitution whenever a new justice is to be seated.”
― Antonin Scalia, Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived

“The fallacy that passes for truth by the mere frequency of its repetition is a particular peril for lawyers working in the common-law system. Like all men and women, we are comfortable with familiar formulations, and in addition are trained to follow what has been said before. It is sometimes worth pausing to consider whether it has been said aright.”
― Antonin Scalia, Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived

“I think there is writing genius as well—which consists primarily, I think, of the ability to place oneself in the shoes of one’s audience; to assume only what they assume; to anticipate what they anticipate; to explain what they need explained; to think what they must be thinking; to feel what they must be feeling.”
― Antonin Scalia, Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived

“A Talmudic maxim instructs with respect to the Scripture: “Turn it over, and turn it over, for all is therein.”
― Antonin Scalia, Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived

“In the 1920s and 1930s Germany was the leader of the world in most areas you could name—the physical sciences, historical scholarship, music, philosophy, public education. The most sobering fact about the Holocaust is that it was there, and not in some backward, underdeveloped country, that it occurred.”
― Antonin Scalia, Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived

“The Dominicans count among their order the great St. Thomas Aquinas, author of the magisterial tract Summa Theologiae and one of the most important theologians in the history of the Catholic Church. Naturally, my father took the opportunity to criticize the saint’s approach to legal interpretation, going so far as to read a passage from Aquinas and comparing it to something an activist judge would have written.”
― Antonin Scalia, Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived

“What makes an American…is not the name or the blood or even the place of birth, but the belief in the principles of freedom and equality that this country stands for.”
― Antonin Scalia, Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived

“The story is told of a speech Teddy Roosevelt was once giving, in which he was repeatedly heckled by an Irishman standing in the back, who kept shouting, “I’m a Democrat!” Teddy, who was pretty quick-witted, finally decided he would engage the fellow, so he asked, “Why are you a Democrat?” And the heckler replied, “My grandfather was a Democrat, my father was a Democrat, and I’m a Democrat!” “Well,” said Teddy, “if your grandfather was a jackass, and your father was a jackass, what would you be?” “A Republican,” came the reply.”
― Antonin Scalia, Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived

“Another characteristic of Homo hibernicus—I know you would be annoyed if I did not mention it—is quickness of intellect. Now I must admit that on this point you Irish may be better judges of yourselves than an outsider like me would be. Because the Irish have all sorts of ways of seeming to be knowledgeable when they are not. One, of course, is lying.”
― Antonin Scalia, Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived