Stephen Breyer quotes:

The advantages? Exercise, no parking problems, gas prices, it's fun. An automobile is expensive. You have to find a place to park and it's not fun. So why not ride a bicycle? I recommend it.

We are selected, but I grew up in California and in San Francisco and there was a system of electing judges.

People have to be educated and they have to stick to it. If people lose that respect, an awful lot is lost.

To threaten the institution is to threaten fair administration of justice and protection of liberty.

You will read in the newspaper more often about federal courts, but the law that affects people, the trials that affect human beings are by and large in the state courts.

And in that confirmation process, I sat for 17 hours in front of a senate judiciary committee.

Judges are appointed often through the political process

Every citizen has to figure out what kind of government he or she wants.

I think it shows that if you have one group of people doing it, you'll get another group of people doing it.

Independence doesn't mean you decide the way you want.

Ultimately, the question of campaign contributions will be decided by the public.

I mean those people who are interested in good government will certainly contribute in order to make certain there's some counter-balance to those whose interests in good government is less.

Well, just that there would be somebody in the office and the voters - it was more or less an understanding in the entire community, as long as that person was doing a good job on the merits, nobody was going to run against him.

And the problem is once you get into this campaign business and begin to have a lot of money, then the person on the bench begins to think - what's going to happen if I decide the case this way or that way?

People have to be educated and they have to stick to it. If people lose that respect, an awful lot is lost

This understanding, underlying constitutional interpretation since the New Deal, reflects the Constitution's demands for structural flexibility sufficient to adapt substantive laws and institutions to rapidly changing social, economic, and technological conditions.

We can speak about the institution, but ultimately the bar is the group that both is in touch with the public on the one hand and understands the judicial institution on the other

You will read in the newspaper more often about federal courts, but the law that affects people, the trials that affect human beings are by and large in the state courts

Independence means you decide according to the law and the facts.

There are loads of countries that have nice written constitutions like ours. But there aren't loads of countries where they're followed.

At least there's a political input, but when you put on the robe, at that point the politics is over.

Active liberty is particularly at risk when law restricts speech directly related to the shaping of public opinion, for example, speech that takes place in areas related to politics and policy-making by elected officials. That special risk justifies especially strong pro-speech judicial presumptions. It also justifies careful review whenever the speech in question seeks to shape public opinion, particularly if that opinion in turn will affect the political process and the kind of society in which we live.

But once the person is selected, at that point that person is independent.

I mean, there are lots of people who get married who can't have children. To take a state that does allow adoption and say-there, what is the justification for saying no gay marriage? Certainly not the one you said, is it?

I think whether you are a judge on my court or whether you are a judge on a court of appeals or any court, and lawyers too - and if you're interested in law yourself, you'll be in the same situation - you have a text that isn't clear. If the text is clear, you follow the text. If the text isn't clear, you have to work out what it means. And that requires context.

It doesn't help to fight crime to put people in prison who are innocent.

It's important to every American that the law protect his or her basic liberty

Nobody wants a judge to be subject to the political whim of the moment.

The best clue to what a person thinks is what he says.

You can have many different selection systems, but the bottom line has to be a system that, once the judge takes office that judge will feel that he or she is to decide the case without reference to the popular thing or the popular will of the moment