Quotes By Thurgood Marshall

Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds.

Today's Constitution is a realistic document of freedom only because of several corrective amendments. Those amendments speak to a sense of decency and fairness that I and other Blacks cherish.

None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody - a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony or a few nuns - bent down and helped us pick up our boots.

What is the quality of your intent?

In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.

A child born to a Black mother in a state like Mississippi... has exactly the same rights as a white baby born to the wealthiest person in the United States. It's not true, but I challenge anyone to say it is not a goal worth working for.

Ending racial discrimination in jury selection can be accomplished only by eliminating peremptory challenges entirely.

If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his house, what books he may read or what films he may watch.

Sometimes history takes things into its own hands.

I have a lifetime appointment and I intend to serve it. I expect to die at 110, shot by a jealous husband.

Surely the fact that a uniformed police officer is wearing his hair below his collar will make him no less identifiable as a policeman.

Mere access to the courthouse doors does not by itself assure a proper functioning of the adversary process.