Quotes by Thurgood Marshall

About Thurgood Marshall:

Thurgood Marshall was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, serving from October 1967 until October 1991. Marshall was the Court's 96th justice and its first African-American justice.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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.

Thurgood Marshall

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

Thurgood Marshall

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

Thurgood Marshall

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

Thurgood Marshall

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.

Thurgood Marshall

What is the quality of your intent?

Thurgood Marshall

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

Thurgood Marshall

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

Thurgood Marshall

Nothing can be more notorious than the calumnies and invectives with which the wisest measures and most virtuous characters of The United States have been pursued and traduced [By American Newspapers]

Thurgood Marshall

I wish I could say that racism and prejudice were only distant memories. We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred and the mistrust…We must dissent because America can do bette...

Thurgood Marshall

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.

Thurgood Marshall

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

Thurgood Marshall

Sometimes history takes things into its own hands.

Thurgood Marshall

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.

Thurgood Marshall

Author Bio

  • NameThurgood Marshall
  • DescriptionAssociate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
  • BornJuly 2, 1908
  • DiedJanuary 24, 1993
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionJudge; Lawyer
  • AwardsSpingarn Medal; Presidential Medal Of Freedom; Four Freedoms Award - Freedom Medal; Philadelphia Liberty Medal