Explore Quotes by John Paul Stevens

When I signed on to letting the death penalty back in, I thought the procedural protections against executing an innocent person were stronger than they turned out to be.

Colonial history contains many examples of firearm regulations in urban areas that imposed obstacles to their use for protection of the home.

When I joined the Supreme Court in 1975, both state and federal judges accepted the Court's unanimous decision in United States v. Miller as having established that the Second Amendment's protection of the right to bear arms was possessed only by members of the militia and applied only to weapons used by the militia.

All I can say is I did the best I could, and I didn't do well enough on many occasions.

But I wound like people to think I was an honest judge and a good judge. And I always tried the reach the best result in every case.

It almost seems I was writing two separate books, the first one about the time before I went on the court and the second one about the many, many terms I was on the court.

I always prided myself on my ability to choose good clerks, and one of the key elements was whether I thought I would like the person.

District of Columbia v. Heller, which recognized an individual right to possess a firearm under the Constitution, is unquestionably the most clearly incorrect decision that the Supreme Court announced during my tenure on the bench.

To make a coverage decision, doesn't one have to make a medical judgment?

Well, in my job, I avoid political commentary.

While money is used to finance speech, money is not speech.

Sam Alito replacing Justice O'Connor was a very significant change. He is much more conservative. And, as for John Roberts, he is much more in the direction of protecting the rights of very rich people to donate money to campaigns than Bill Rehnquist ever was.

There was a fear among the original framers that the federal government would be so strong that they might destroy the state militias.

I announced my dissent in the Citizens United orally, and I stumbled in my announcement. I had a little difficulty expressing myself. And that was out of character.

I am not a fan of President Trump, I should say. I wouldn't try to comment on every particular issue in which we disagree, but there are plenty of them.

I play duplicate bridge and I play golf and I go swimming once in a while.

I'm a person who plays Ping-Pong once in a while.

Of course, when I joined the Navy and when I took up the correspondence course in cryptography, I had to sign an oath that I would never reveal what sort of work I was involved in. It was only some years after the war that Congress passed a statute relieving me of that obligation.

I had been born a Republican. My dad was an active Republican, but he was not active in politics and I really never was either. It's true that I did belong to that party, but it really had very little impact on my public work or my private views.

For over 200 years after the adoption of the Second Amendment, it was uniformly understood as not placing any limit on either federal or state authority to enact gun control legislation.

If you're interested in the job and in the kind of work that's done, you have to have an interest in who's going to fill your shoes.