1970s

• The emphasis must not be on the right to abortion but on the right to privacy and reproductive control.
  • Interview, Ms. magazine (April 1974)

1990s

• Neither federal nor state government acts compatibly with equal protection when a law or official policy denies to women, simply because they are women, full citizenship stature - equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in and contribute to society based on their individual talents and capacities.
  • Writing for the court, United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996)

2000s

• In sum, the Court's conclusion that a constitutionally adequate recount is impractical is a prophecy the Court's own judgment will not allow to be tested. Such an untested prophecy should not decide the Presidency of the United States. I dissent.
  • Dissenting, Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000)

• Dissents speak to a future age. It's not simply to say, "My colleagues are wrong and I would do it this way." But the greatest dissents do become court opinions and gradually over time their views become the dominant view. So that's the dissenter's hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow.
  • Interview with Nina Totenberg of National Public Radio (2 May 2002)

• Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.
  • Interview, The New York Times Magazine (7 July 2009)

2010s

Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.

• Nine, nine... There have been nine men there for a long, long time, right? So why not nine women?
  • In response to the question “How many women would be enough” [on the Supreme Court] during interview with Diane Sawyer at The Women’s Conference (Long Beach, California, (26 October 2010)

• You're saying, no, State did two kinds of marriage, the full marriage, and then this sort of skim milk marriage.
  • United States v. Windsor, oral argument (27 March 2013)

• Undocumented aliens unfortunately are not protected by the law and they are tremendously subjected to exploitation. The result is that they would be willing to work for a wage that no person who is welcome in our shores would, would take. I think the answer to that problem is in Congress' lap. People who have been hardworking, tax paying, those people ought to be given an opportunity to be on a track that leads towards citizenship and if that happened, then they wouldn't be prey to the employers who say "we want you because we know that you work for a salary we could not lawfully pay anyone else."
  • "Interview with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg", The Takeaway (16 September 2013)

• Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.
  • Dissenting, Shelby County v. Holder (2013)

• Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.
  • Statement of advice on being presented the Radcliffe Medal, as quoted in "Honoring Ruth Bader Ginsburg" by Colleen Walsh, in The Harvard Gazette (29 May 2015)

• It's a facet of the gay rights movement that people don't think about enough. Why suddenly marriage equality? Because it wasn't until 1981 that the court struck down Louisiana's "head and master rule," that the husband was head and master of the house.
  • My Own Words (2016)