Thurgood Marshall

"I learned that you can stand firm and still show mercy."

"The fight for justice never ends. It only transforms."

"My generation has done what we could. Your generation must do better."

"We must be as fierce in our commitment to equality as our opponents are to inequality."

"The Constitution belongs to all of us, not just to the privileged few."

"Success comes to those who are willing to sacrifice for what they believe in."

"I have no regrets about the choices I made, even when they were unpopular."

"The measure of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable members."

"We are all in this together, whether we acknowledge it or not."

"The law must serve the people, not the powerful."

"I believe in the power of education to transform lives and nations."

"Greatness is not measured by what you achieve, but by what you endure."

"We must be willing to stand alone if necessary, but we should never have to."

"The function of the lawyer is to preserve the system. But the system itself may need to be changed. That's the function of the political activist."

"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 hatred and from the despair, and we must dissent because America can do better."

"Real integration has yet to be achieved anywhere in this world."

"The lawyer's job is to tell clients what they need to know, not what they want to hear."

"Sometimes you get the best light from a burning bridge."

"I get no respect. I go to the parking lot, a cop orders me to move my car. I say, 'But this is the Supreme Court.'"

"Lawlessness is lawlessness. And bigotry is bigotry. It doesn't matter who practices it or who it's practiced against."

"Education must be universally available to all, and it is the great leveler."

"The Constitution, as originally drafted and conceived, made us the most powerful nation in the world. But the Constitution, as written, was defective."

"I believe that today's Constitution is a living document intended to provide our basic rights."

"What's important is that we fight for the right to change, and that changes come through the courts."

"I'm the only one in my family who doesn't gamble. That's because I'm already on the biggest gamble of my life."

"The rights of the minority must be protected by the majority to ensure a stable society."

"You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it."

"The man who has nothing to die for has nothing to live for."

"My father said I was born to be a lawyer. I think he was right."

"If the individual states should continue to ignore the mandate of the Federal Constitution, the federal government has to step in and do something about it."