Not a law firm in the entire city of New York bid for my employment as a lawyer when I earned my degree.
Ruth Bader GinsburgRead
My mother was a powerful influence. She made me toe the line. If I didn't have a perfect report card, she showed her disappointment.
Interpretation
A mother's influence is crucial in shaping a child's values and discipline.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg reflects on the significant impact her mother had on her life by instilling discipline and the importance of achieving high standards. This quote highlights the role of parental guidance in a child's development and how a mother's expectations can motivate one to strive for excellence.
In practice
In a graduation speech highlighting the importance of family support.
Not a law firm in the entire city of New York bid for my employment as a lawyer when I earned my degree.
If you want to influence people, you want them to accept your suggestions, you don't say, 'You don't know how to use the English language,' or 'How could you make that argument?' It will be welcomed much more if you have a gentle touch than if you are aggressive.
I try to teach through my opinions, through my speeches, how wrong it is to judge people on the basis of what they look like, color of their skin, whether they're men or women.
The worst times were the years I was alone. The image to the public entering the courtroom was eight men, of a certain size, and then this little woman sitting to the side. That was not a good image for the public to see.
A constitution, as important as it is, will mean nothing unless the people are yearning for liberty and freedom.
My resume showed membership on both the Harvard and Columbia Law Reviews, a credit impressive abroad where it was not generally known that Law Reviews were student-operated publications.
My dad was an absentee dad, so it was always important to me that I was part of my daughter's life, and she deserved two parents, which is part of the rationale behind us staying married for 30 years.
Being a housewife and a mother is the biggest job in the world, but if it doesn't interest you, don't do it - I would have made a terrible mother.
I often imagine what it would be like if my father were still here to mark his 100th birthday, if Alzheimer's hadn't clawed away years, possibilities, hopes. What would he think of all the commemorations and celebrations?
Family is supposed to be our safe haven. Very often, it's the place where we find the deepest heartache.
My mother... would give us a hard time sometimes, and she would say to us, 'I don't know what's wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?' You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.
My mother 'gave teas' the way other mothers breathed. Her own mother 'gave teas.' All of their friends 'gave teas,' each involving butter cookies extruded from a metal press and pastel bonbons ordered from See's.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.