Thurgood Marshall Quotes

We deal here with the right of all of our children, whatever their race, to an equal start in life and to an equal opportunity to reach their full potential as citizens. Those children who have been denied that right in the past deserve better than to see fences thrown up to deny them that right in the future.

Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy. Make it. Protect it. Pass it on.

Classifications and distinctions based on race or color have no moral or legal validity in our society. They are contrary to our constitution and laws.

My father had a flat rule. He believed that every man’s house was his castle. He had a flat rule: no man could come in his house without his permission.

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

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

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.

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

Equal means getting the same thing, at the same time and in the same place.

We must dissent from the fear.

It is important that the strongest pressures against the continuation of segregation, North or South, be continually and constantly manifested. Probably, as much as anything else, this is the key in the elimination of discrimination in the United States.

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.

What is the quality of your intent?

A man can make what he wants of himself if he truly believes that he must be ready for hard work and many heartbreaks.

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

Each of you, as an individual, must pick your own goals. Listen to others, but do not become a blind follower.

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