Clarence Thomas Quotes (100 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

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My Grandfather's Son

Clarence Thomas

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Famous Clarence Thomas Quotes

“Today, of course, it is customary to collapse, if not overwrite, our individual characteristics into new, but now acceptable stereotypes. It no longer matters whether one is from urban New York City or rural Georgia. It doesn't matter whether we came from a highly educated family or a barely literate one. It does not matter if you are a Roman Catholic or a Southern Baptist. All of these differences are canceled by race, and a revised set of acceptable stereotypes have been put in place.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

“I often had occasion to remind myself in years to come that self-interest isn't a principle- it's just self-interest.”

Clarence Thomas

Page 101
2000s, (2008)

“[My] approach recognizes the basic principle of a written Constitution. We "the people" adopted a written Constitution precisely because it has a fixed meaning, a meaning that does not change. Otherwise we would have adopted the British approach of an unwritten, evolving constitution. Aside from amendment according to Article V, the Constitution’s meaning cannot be updated, or changed, or altered by the Supreme Court, the Congress, or the President. Of course, even when strictly interpreted as I believe it should be, the Constitution remains a modern, "breathing" document as some like to call it, in the sense that the Court is constantly required to interpret how its provisions apply to the Constitutional questions of modern life. Nevertheless, strict interpretation must never surrender to the understandably attractive impulse towards creative but unwarranted alterations of first principles.”

Clarence Thomas

Speech to the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 2 February 2001.
2000s

“It pains me deeply, or more deeply than any of you can imagine, to be perceived by so many members of my race as doing them harm. All the sacrifice, all the long hours of preparation were to help, not to hurt. But what hurts more, much more, is the amount of time and attention spent on manufactured controversies and media sideshows when so many problems cry out for constructive attention.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

“A friend of mine who passed away some nine years ago was an active member of the NBA. And many of you may remember him, Gil Hardy. [Applause. ] Probably one of the most painful tragedies for me of my confirmation was to see the name of one of the nicest, most decent human beings I had ever met, besmirched. And Gil was my best friend at both college and at Yale Law School. He was the best man at my wedding and he is the person to whom I went for solace.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Clarence Thomas

Page 105
2000s, (2008)

Clarence Thomas: Trending quotes

“I agree with Ralph Ellison when he asked, perhaps rhetorically, why is it that so many of those who would tell us the meaning of Negro, of Negro life, never bothered to learn how varied it really is.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)
Context: I agree with Ralph Ellison when he asked, perhaps rhetorically, why is it that so many of those who would tell us the meaning of Negro, of Negro life, never bothered to learn how varied it really is. That is particularly true of many whites who have elevated condescension to an art form by advancing a monolithic view of blacks in much the same way that the mythic, disgusting image of the lazy, dumb black was advanced by open, rather than disguised, bigots.

Life , Learning

“I come to state that I'm a man, free to think for myself and do as I please.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)
Context: I have come here today not in anger or to anger, though my mere presence has been sufficient, obviously, to anger some. Nor have I come to defend my views, but rather to assert my right to think for myself, to refuse to have my ideas assigned to me as though I was an intellectual slave because I'm black. I come to state that I'm a man, free to think for myself and do as I please.

Thinking

“Since well before 1787, liberty has been understood as freedom from government action, not entitlement to government benefits. The framers created our constitution to preserve that understanding of liberty”

Clarence Thomas

Obergefell v. Hodges http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf (26 June 2015).
2010s
Context: The Court's decision today is at odds not only with the constitution, but with the principles upon which our Nation was built. Since well before 1787, liberty has been understood as freedom from government action, not entitlement to government benefits. The framers created our constitution to preserve that understanding of liberty. Yet the majority invokes our Constitution in the name of a 'liberty' that the framers would not have recognized, to the detriment of the liberty they sought to protect. Along the way, it rejects the idea—captured in our Declaration of Independence—that human dignity is innate and suggests instead that it comes from the Government. This distortion of our Constitution not only ignores the text, it inverts the relationship between the individual and the state in our Republic. I cannot agree with it.

Understanding , Freedom

Clarence Thomas Quotes

“Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law”

Clarence Thomas

Concurring in Adarand v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=U10252&friend=oyez (1995).
1990s
Context: [I disagree] that there is a racial paternalism exception to the principle of equal protection. I believe that there is a 'moral [and] constitutional equivalence,' between laws designed to subjugate a race and those that distribute benefits on the basis of race in order to foster some current notion of equality. Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law.

Law

“I am a man, a black man, an American.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)
Context: Despite some of the nonsense that has been said about me by those who should know better, and so much nonsense, or some of which subtracts from the sum total of human knowledge, despite this all, I am a man, a black man, an American. And my history is not unlike that of many blacks from the deep South. And in many ways it is not that much different from that of many other Americans.

“The summer of 1971 was perhaps one of the most difficult of my life. It was clear to me that the road to destruction was paved with anger, resentment and rage. But where were we to go? I would often spend hours in our small efficiency apartment in New Haven pondering this question and listening to Marvin Gaye's then new album, "What's Going On?" To say the least, it was a depressing summer. What were we to do? What's going on?”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Life , Question , Rage , Summer

“It's fascinating that people, there's so many people now who will make judgments based on what you look like. I'm black, so I'm supposed to think a certain way? I'm supposed to have certain opinions? I don't do that. You don't create a box and put people in and then make a lot of generalizations about them.”

Clarence Thomas

Interview with Steve Kroft https://web.archive.org/web/20140611214639/http://www.cbsnews.com/news/clarence-thomas-the-justice-nobody-knows/ (September 2007).
2000s

People , Way , Thinking , Box

“One opinion that is trotted out for propaganda, for the propaganda parade, is my dissent in Hudson vs. McMillian. The conclusion reached by the long arms of the critics is that I supported the beating of prisoners in that case. Well, one must either be illiterate or fraught with malice to reach that conclusion. Though one can disagree with my dissent, and certainly the majority of the court disagreed, no honest reading can reach such a conclusion. Indeed, we took the case to decide the quite narrow issue, whether a prisoner's rights were violated under the 'cruel and unusual punishment' clause of the Eighth Amendment as a result of a single incident of force by the prison guards which did not cause a significant injury. In the first section of my dissent, I stated the following: 'In my view, a use of force that causes only insignificant harm to a prisoner may be immoral; it may be tortuous; it may be criminal, and it may even be remediable under other provisions of the Federal Constitution. But it is not cruel and unusual punishment.' Obviously, beating prisoners is bad. But we did not take the case to answer this larger moral question or a larger legal question of remedies under other statutes or provisions of the Constitution. How one can extrapolate these larger conclusions from the narrow question before the court is beyond me, unless, of course, there's a special segregated mode of analysis.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Question , Support , Reading

“I had manufactured artificial goals as a means of motivating myself, using my longing for money, cars, and other material possessions to create a false sense of purpose. They had worked on me like spoonfuls of sugar- a jolt of energy that soon faded, leaving behind the pangs of a deeper hunger. I had cut myself off from the transcendent hope of religion, and now a vast and frightening expanse of uncertainty lay before me.”

Clarence Thomas

Pages 116-117
2000s, (2008)

Money , Hunger , Religion , Hope

“An education is meaningless unless it equips students to have a better life.”

Clarence Thomas

Page 142
2000s, (2008)

Life , Education

“It is interesting to remember that someone gave me a copy of Prof. Thomas Sowell's book, Education, Myths and Tragedies, in which he predicted much of what has happened to blacks and education. I threw it in the trash, unread, declaring that he was not a black man since no black could take the positions that he had taken, whatever they were, since I had only heard his views were not those of a black man.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Books , Education

“My feelings were reaffirmed during the summer of 1968 as a result of the lingering stench of racism in Savannah and the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. No matter what the reasons were, I closed out the sixties as one angry young man waiting on the revolution that I was certain would soon come. I saw no way out. I, like many others, felt the deep chronic agony of anomie and alienation. All seemed to be defined by race. We became a reaction to the 'man', his ominous reflection.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Way , Feeling , Waiting , Summer

“With differing, but equally fallible views, I think it is best that they be aired and sorted out in an environment of civility, consistent with the institutions in which we are involved. In this case, the judicial system.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Thinking

“I, for one, have been singled out for particularly bilious and venomous assaults. These criticisms, as near as I can tell, and I admit that it is rare that I take notice of this calumny, have little to do with any particular opinion, though each opinion does provide one more occasion to criticize. Rather, the principal problem seems to be a deeper antecedent offense: I have no right to think the way I do because I'm black.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Way , Problem , Thinking

“Thank you, Judge Keith, for your kind, warm words. As always, I deeply appreciate the manner in which you have made yourself available over the years for counsel and advice. And I appreciate your courteous and dignified example over the past 15 years. And I might add parenthetically here, I met Judge Keith in the early '80s when I was trying to figure out a way to distribute in excess of 10 million dollars to minorities for scholarships, and was being opposed by individuals who should have been supporting us. And it was his advice and counsel that bolstered us in that effort. We who are just commencing our tenures as judges can only hope to emulate your positive spirit and the strength of character that you've always demonstrated.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Hope , Way , Support , Effort

“I was also upset to hear of a black conservative in Virginia named Jay Parker. How could a black man call himself a conservative? In a twist of fate, they both are dear friends today, and the youthful wrath I visited upon them is now being visited upon me, though without the youth. What goes around does indeed come around.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Fate , Youth

“The black people I knew came from different places and backgrounds- social, economic, even ethnic- yet the color of our skin was somehow supposed to make us identical in spite of our differences. I didn't buy it. Of course we had all experienced racism in one way or another, but did that mean that we had to think alike?”

Clarence Thomas

Page 62
2000s, (2008)

People , Color , Way , Thinking

“Perhaps the fires through which I had passed would have a purifying effect on me, just as a blast furnace burns the impurities out of steel.”

Clarence Thomas

Page 279
2000s, (2008)

“Then, as always, I felt morally obligated to advocate our official position, even when it conflicted with my personal views.”

Clarence Thomas

Page 177
2000s, (2008)

Personality

“Though the ideas and opinions themselves are not necessarily illegitimate if held by non-black individuals, they, and the person enunciating them, are illegitimate if that person happens to be black. Thus, there's a subset of criticism that must of necessity be reserved for me, even if every non-black member of the court agrees with the idea or the opinion. You see, they are exempt from this kind of criticism, precisely because they are not black. As noted earlier, they are more often than not subjected to the whites-only sophisticated analysis.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Idea , Personality

“With respect to my following, or, more accurately, being led by other members of the Court, that is silly, but expected since I couldn't possibly think for myself. And what else could possibly be the explanation when I fail to follow the jurisprudential, ideological and intellectual, if not anti-intellectual, prescription assigned to blacks. Since thinking beyond this prescription is presumptively beyond my abilities, obviously someone must be putting these strange ideas into my mind and my opinions.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Idea , Thinking

“The intensity of my feelings was reinforced by other events of the late '60s: the riots, the marches, the sense that something had to be done, done quickly to resolve the issue of race. In college there was an air of excitement, apprehension and anger. We started the Black Students Union. We protested. We worked in the Free Breakfast Program. We would walk out of school in the winter of 1969 in protest.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

School , Feeling , Sense , Winter

“I've come to assert that I am a judge and I will not be consigned the unquestioned opinions of others. But even more than that, I have come to say that isn't it time to move on? Isn't it time to realize that being angry with me solves no problems? Isn't it time to acknowledge that the problem of race has defied simple solutions and that not one of us, not a single one of us can lay claim to the solution? Isn't it time that we respect ourselves and each other as we have demanded respect from others? Isn't it time to ignore those whose sole occupation is sowing seeds of discord and animus? That is self-hatred. Isn't it time to continue diligently to search for lasting solutions? I believe that the time has come today. God bless each of you, and may God keep you.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

God , Search , Problem , Time

“Of course there is much criticism of the court by this group or that, depending on the court's decisions in various highly publicized cases. Some of the criticism is profoundly uninformed and unhelpful. And all too often, uncivil second-guessing is not encumbered by the constraints of facts, logic or reasoned analysis.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Decision , Dependency

“I'd also like to thank President Jones for his support, Justice Johnson for your strength and your courage and you stick-to-it-tivity, Judge Bailey - who I thought I had gotten into a mess, but having had dinner with him, he got me into a mess — but I have enjoyed your company and the opportunity to learn from you, to get to know you, and perhaps to develop a friendship over the years. And I would like to thank the other members of the Judicial Council for the National Bar Association who have been so courageous and forthright and kind to invite me to join you this afternoon.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Friendship , Justice , Courage , Support

“In the final weeks of my seminary days, shortly after Dr. King's death, I found myself becoming consumed by feelings of animosity and anger. I was disenchanted with my church and my country. I was tired of being in the minority, and I was tired of turning the other cheek. I, along with many blacks, found ways to protest and try to change the treatment we received in this country. Perhaps my passion for Richard Wright novels was affecting me. Perhaps it was listening too intently to Nina Simone. Perhaps, like Bigger Thomas, I was being consumed by the circumstances in which I found myself, circumstances that I saw as responding only to race.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Death , Way , Feeling , Passion

“On the other hand, the constructive and often scholarly criticism is almost always helpful in thinking about or rethinking decisions. It is my view that constructive criticism goes with the turf, especially when the stakes are so high and the cases arouse passions and emotions. And, in a free society, the precious freedom of speech and the strength of ideas, we at the court could not possibly claim exemption from such criticism. Moreover, we are not infallible, just final.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Idea , Thinking , Decision , Freedom

“It was this event that shattered my faith in my religion and my country. I had spent the mid-'60s as a successful student in a virtually white environment. I had learned Latin, physics and chemistry. I had accepted the loneliness that came with being "the integrator," the first and the only. But this event, this trauma I could not take, especially when one of my fellow seminarians, not knowing that I was standing behind him, declared that he hoped the S. O. B. died. This was a man of God, mortally stricken by an assassin's bullet, and one preparing for the priesthood had wished evil upon him.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

God , Faith , Religion , Hope

“Though being underestimated has its advantages, the stench of racial inferiority still confounds my olfactory nerves.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

“Tillman was from South Carolina, and as I hear the story he was concerned that the corporations, Republican corporations, were favorable toward blacks and he felt that there was a need to regulate them.”

Clarence Thomas

As quoted in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/us/politics/04scotus.html?hp&_r=0 (February 2010).
2010s

“Thanks to God's direct intervention, I had risen phoenixlike from the ashes of self-pity and despair, and though my wounds were still raw, I trusted that in time they, too, would heal.”

Clarence Thomas

Page 282
2000s, (2008)

God , Time , Despair

“Long gone is the time when we opposed the notion that we all looked alike and talked alike. Somehow we have come to exalt the new black stereotype above all and to demand conformity to that norm. It is this notion — that our race defines us -- that Ralph Ellison so eloquently rebuts in his essay, "The World and the Jug." He sees the lives of black people as more than a burden, but also a discipline, just as any human life which has endured so long is a discipline, teaching its own insights into the human condition, its own strategies of survival. There's a fullness and even a richness here. And here despite the realities of politics, perhaps, but nevertheless here and real because it is human life.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Life , People , World , Reality

“But three decades have evaporated in our lives, too quickly and without sufficient residual evidence of their importance. But much has changed since then. The hope that there would be expeditious resolutions to our myriad problems has long since evaporated with those years. Many who debated and hoped then, now do neither. There now seems to be a broad acceptance of the racial divide as a permanent state. While we once celebrated those things that we had in common with our fellow citizens who did not share our race, so many now are triumphal about our differences, finding little, if anything, in common. Indeed, some go so far as to all but define each of us by our race and establish the range of our thinking and our opinions, if not our deeds by our color.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Hope , Color , Problem , Thinking

“I knew that until I was ready to tell the truth as I saw it, I was no better than a politician- but I didn't know whether I would ever be brave enough to break ranks and speak my mind.”

Clarence Thomas

Page 116
2000s, (2008)

Truth

“As Ralph Ellison wrote more than 35 years ago, 'Why is it so often true that when critics confront the American as Negro, they suddenly drop their advanced critical armament and revert with an air of confident superiority to quite primitive modes of analysis?' Those matters accomplished by whites are routinely subjected to sophisticated modes of analysis. But the when the selfsame matters are accomplished by blacks, the opaque racial prism of analysis precludes such sophistication, and all is seen in black and white. And some who would not venture onto the more sophisticated analytical turf are quite content to play in the minor leagues of primitive harping. The more things change, the more they remain the same.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Confidence , Change

“I had sworn to administer justice "faithfully and impartially." To do otherwise would be to violate my oath. That meant I had no business of imposing my personal views on the country. Nor did I have the slightest intention of doing so.”

Clarence Thomas

Page 238
2000s, (2008)

Justice , Business , Personality , Country

“Unfortunately, from time to time, the criticism of the court goes beyond the bounds of civil debate and discourse. Today it seems quite acceptable to attack the court and other institutions when one disagrees with an opinion or policy. I can still remember traveling along Highway 17 in south Georgia, the Coastal Highway, during the fifties and sixties, and seeing the 'Impeach Earl Warren' signs.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Travel , Time

“I make no apologies for this view now, nor do I intend to do so in the future. I have now been on the court for seven terms. For the most part, it has been much like other endeavors in life. It has its challenges and requires much of the individual to master the workings of the institution. We all know that. It is, I must say, quite different from what I might have anticipated if I had the opportunity to do so.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Life , Future , Parting

“I, for one, see this in much the same way I saw our denial of rights — as nothing short of a denial of our humanity. Not one of us has the "gospel," nor are our opinions based upon some revealed precepts to be taken as faith. As thinking, rational individuals, not one of us can claim infallibility, even from the overwhelming advantage of hindsight and Monday-morning quarterbacking.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Faith , Way , Thinking

“I was seized with a guilt that I knew would never leave me, and I knew I didn't deserve to be free of it. I hadn't quite reached the end of my rope, but I was close enough.”

Clarence Thomas

Page 145
2000s, (2008)

“Human dignity has long been understood in this country to be innate. When the framers proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence that 'all men are created equal' and 'endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights', they referred to a vision of mankind in which all humans are created in the image of God and therefore of inherent worth. That vision is the foundation upon which this nation was built. The corollary of that principle is that human dignity cannot be taken away by the government. Slaves did not lose their dignity, any more than they lost their humanity, because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them. And those denied governmental benefits certainly do not lose their dignity because the government denies them those benefits. The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away.”

Clarence Thomas

Obergefell v. Hodges http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf (26 June 2015), pp. 16-17.
2010s

Men , God , Country

“The life I had dreamed of so often during those hot summers on the farm in Georgia or during what seemed like endless hours on the oil truck with my grandfather, expired as Dr. King expired. As so many of you do, I still know exactly where I was when I heard the news. It was a low moment in our nation's history and a demarcation between hope and hopelessness for many of us.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Life , Dreams , Hope , History

“For a time we wondered why our real father didn't come and rescue us, but we had long since accepted our fate by the time we finally met him.”

Clarence Thomas

Page 12
2000s, (2008)

Fate , Time

“By straying from the text of the Constitution, substantive due process exalts judges at the expense of the People from whom they derive their authority. Petitioners argue that by enshrining the traditional definition of marriage in their State Constitutions through voter-approved amendments, the States have put the issue 'beyond the reach of the normal democratic process'. But the result petitioners seek is far less democratic. They ask nine judges on this Court to enshrine their definition of marriage in the Federal Constitution and thus put it beyond the reach of the normal democratic process for the entire Nation. That a 'bare majority' of this Court is able to grant this wish, wiping out with a stroke of the keyboard the results of the political process in over 30 States, based on a provision that guarantees only 'due process' is but further evidence of the danger of substantive due process.”

Clarence Thomas

Obergefell v. Hodges http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf (26 June 2015).
2010s

Marriage , People

“The important thing was that I had never behaved inappropriately toward any woman, and I had no intention of letting my enemies hang that age-old charge of sexual impropriety around my neck. Those who wished only to exploit my past failings, not forgive them, would get no help from me.”

Clarence Thomas

Page 229
2000s, (2008)

Age , Forgiveness , Past , Help

“The majority's decision today will require States to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and to recognize same-sex marriages entered in other States largely based on a constitutional provision guaranteeing 'due process' before a person is deprived of his 'life, liberty, or property'. I have elsewhere explained the dangerous fiction of treating the Due Process Clause as a font of substantive rights. It distorts the constitutional text, which guarantees only whatever 'process' is 'due' before a person is deprived of life, liberty, and property. Worse, it invites judges to do exactly what the majority has done here.”

Clarence Thomas

Obergefell v. Hodges http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf (26 June 2015).
2010s

Life , Marriage , Sex , Decision

“A white person is free to think whatever they want to think, but a black person has to think a certain way. Why do you think I get in so much controversy? People have a model of what they think a black person should think.”

Clarence Thomas

Justice Thomas to Diane Brady, 2007. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-01-15/clarence-thomas-brilliantly-breaks-his-silent-streak
2000s

People , Way , Thinking , Personality

“As used in the Due Process Clauses, 'liberty' most likely refers to 'the power of loco-motion, of changing situation, or removing one's person to whatsoever place one's own inclination may direct; without imprisonment or restraint, unless by due course of law'. That definition is drawn from the historical roots of the Clauses and is consistent with our Constitution’s text and structure. Both of the Constitution’s Due Process Clauses reach back to Magna Carta. Chapter 39 of the original Magna Carta provided ', No free man shall be taken, imprisoned, disseised, outlawed, banished, or in any way destroyed, nor will We proceed against or prosecute him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land'. Although the 1215 version of Magna Carta was in effect for only a few weeks, this provision was later reissued in 1225 with modest changes to its wording as follows: 'No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or be disseised of his freehold, or liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any otherwise destroyed; nor will we not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.”

Clarence Thomas

In his influential commentary on the provision many years later, Sir Edward Coke interpreted the words 'by the law of the land' to mean the same thing as 'by due proces of the common law'.
Obergefell v. Hodges http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf (26 June 2015).
2010s

Law , Way , Change , Personality

“This is not an opportunity to talk about difficult matters privately or in a closed environment. This is a circus. It's a national disgrace. And from my standpoint, as a black American, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U. S. Senate rather than hung from a tree.”

Clarence Thomas

Hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new-yitna?id=UsaThom&images=images/modeng&data=/lv6/workspace/yitna&tag=public&part=24, Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library (October 11, 1991).
1990s

Way , Idea , Thinking , Tree

“For those of you with whom I do not share the same opinion and perhaps that is many I will take only 30 minutes of your time. And perhaps at least we can part company having known we at least visited for 30 minutes.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Time , Parting

“I can't see myself spending the rest of my life as a judge.”

Clarence Thomas

A Silent Justice Speaks Out http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3664944&page=1.
1990s

Life

“As has become the custom, a wearisome one I admit, this invitation has not been without controversy. Though this unfortunate, this controversy has added little value in the calculus of my decision to be here.”

Clarence Thomas

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)