I think I probably made a mistake in the Hardwick case... I do think it was inconsistent in a general way with Roe. When I had the opportunity to reread the opinions a few months later, I thought the dissent had the better of the arguments.
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At NYU Law School, October 18, 1990; after retirement from the Court, reflecting on his vote in Bowers v. Hardwick to uphold laws making homosexual sex a crime for which people could be imprisoned. Reported in Nat Hentoff, "Infamous Sodomy Law Struck Down", The Village Voice, December 22nd, 1998.Lewis F. Powell
» Lewis F. Powell - all quotes »
I used to say that, as Solicitor General, I made three arguments in every case. First came the one I had planned – as I thought, logical, coherent, complete. Second was the one actually presented – interrupted, incoherent, disjointed, disappointing. The third was the utterly devastating argument that I thought of after going to bed that night…
Robert H. Jackson
I reread that book in the summer of '03. . . . And I hadn't looked at that book either since '91. And I was dreading it. I thought it was going to be a really terrible novel. Everything everyone had ever said about it was going to be true. . . . And I started reading it... and I was surprised. It was good. It was fun. It was not nearly as pretentious as I remember I wanted it to be when I was writing it. Not nearly as weighted down with the importance that I thought I was investing it with. I found it really fast-moving. I found it really funny. And I liked it a lot. The violence was... it made my toes curl. I really freaked out. I couldn't believe how violent it was. It was truly upsetting. I had to steel myself to reread those passages.
Bret Easton Ellis
As Attorney General, Solicitor General, and Assistant Attorney General,…he lost but a single case in the Supreme Court. Against [that] may be tallied some twenty-seven arguments which he won.
Robert H. Jackson
I reread? I lied! I don't dare to reread. I cannot reread. What's the point, for me, in rereading?
Fernando Pessoa
We are not so absurd as to propose that the teacher should not set forth his own opinions as the true ones and exert his utmost powers to exhibit their truth in the strongest light. To abstain from this would be to nourish the worst intellectual habit of all, that of not finding, and not looking for, certainty in any teacher. But the teacher himself should not be held to any creed; nor should the question be whether his own opinions are the true ones, but whether he is well instructed in those of other people, and, in enforcing his own, states the arguments for all conflicting opinions fairly.
John Stuart Mill
Powell, Lewis F., Jr.
Powell, Michael
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