“The same qualities that made him a memorable jurist would make him a lightning rod for fierce opposition if he were named to the Supreme Court now.”

—  Byron White

USA Today, April 17, 2002, quoted in US Senate Republican Policy Committee article, 25 April 2002, "The Left's Iron-Clad Litmus Test on Abortion: Justice White Could Not Be Confirmed Today".

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The same qualities that made him a memorable jurist would make him a lightning rod for fierce opposition if he were nam…" by Byron White?
Byron White photo
Byron White 8
Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, American footb… 1917–2002

Related quotes

Emily Brontë photo

“It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him; and that not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Catherine Earnshaw (Ch. IX).
Wuthering Heights (1847)
Context: I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy. That will do to explain my secret, as well as the other. I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low I shouldn't have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him; and that not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.

Chip Pickering photo

“The quality that made him great is that he loved greatly”

Chip Pickering (1963) American politician

speaking of the late Congressman Sonny Montgomery, A Tribute to the Legacy http://www.allisoneditorial.com/tmi-contents.pdf

P.G. Wodehouse photo

“A certain critic—for such men, I regret to say, do exist—made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained ‘all the old Wodehouse characters under different names’. He has probably now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have outgeneralled this man by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy. (From preface)”

P.G. Wodehouse book Summer Lightning

Summer Lightning (1929)

Orson Scott Card photo

“If something just plain didn’t make sense to Alvin, he didn’t believe it, and no amount of quoting from the Bible would convince him. Now Taleswapper was telling him that he was right to refuse to believe things that made no sense.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Seventh Son (1987), Chapter 10.

Arthur Schopenhauer photo

“For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

The Art of Literature
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Counsels and Maxims

“I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismograph.”

Ken Kesey (1935–2001) novelist

Source: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968), Ch. 1 : Black Shiny FBI Shoes

Tom Wolfe photo

“I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismograph”

Tom Wolfe book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

On Ken Kesey, in Ch. I : Black Shiny FBI Shoes
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968)
Context: He talks in a soft voice with a country accent, almost a pure country accent, only crackling and rasping and cheese-grated over the two-foot hookup, talking about —
"—there's been no creativity," he is saying, "and I think my value has been to help create the next step. I don't think there will be any movement off the drug scene until there is something else to move to —"
— all in a plain country accent about something — well, to be frank, I didn't know what in the hell it was all about. Sometimes he spoke cryptically, in aphorisms. I told him I had heard he didn't intend to do any more writing. Why? I said.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismograph," he said.
He talked about something called the Acid Test and forms of expression in which there would be no separation between himself and the audience. It would be all one experience, with all the senses opened wide, words, music, lights, sounds, touch —
lightning.

Paulo Coelho photo

“God is the same, even though He has a thousand names; it is up to us to select a name for Him.”

Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

George Washington Carver photo

“Our creator is the same and never changes despite the names given Him by people here and in all parts of the world. Even if we gave Him no name at all, He would still be there, within us, waiting to give us good on this earth.”

George Washington Carver (1864–1943) botanist

Quoted in Linda O. McMurray, George Washington Carver: Scientist and Symbol (Oxford University Press, 1982, ISBN 0-195-03205-5, 382 pages), p. 106

Thiago Silva photo

“He is already in the category of Baresi, Sammer and anyone else you want to name. Ultimately what he wins will decide where he ranks, but his qualities make him stronger than all of them.”

Thiago Silva (1984) Brazilian footballer

Laurent Blanc (PSG), 2013 http://www.leparisien.fr/psg-foot-paris-saint-germain/laurent-blanc-il-n-a-aucune-faille-05-04-2013-2698813.php
From coaches and club directors

Related topics