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As far as I'm concerned, the mark of a good justice or a good judge is an opinion you can read and have no idea whether it was written by a man or a woman, a Republican or a Democrat or a Christian or a Jew. The most important thing is quality and competence and temperament and character and diligence.

— Potter Stewart

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Source, in full

in Fred Barbash, "Student Query Moved Stewart to Quit", The Washington Post (June 20, 1981), when asked whether President Reagan should make a special effort to appoint a woman to the Supreme Court, from which Stewart was resigning.

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Justice

More quotes by Potter Stewart

Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.

Abortion is inherently different from other medical procedures because no other procedure involves the purposeful termination of a potential life.

But just because you have a right to do something doesn’t mean it’s right to do it.

The Law And Potter Stewart: An Interview With Justice Potter Stewart (1983)

For when everything is classified, then nothing is classified and the system becomes one to be disregarded by the cynical or the careless and to be manipulated by those intent on self-protection or self-promotion.

The Fourth Amendment and the personal rights it secures have a long history. At the very core stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.

All Potter Stewart quotes →

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It is the law of life that if you are kind to someone you feel happy. If you are cruel you are unhappy. And if you hurt someone, you will be hurt back.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Potter Stewart (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.