What's our nation's mission,

The people who shape our lives and our cultures have the ability to communicate a vision or a quest or a joy or a mission.

I do not think that we should select judges based on a particular philosophy as opposed to temperament, commitment to judicial neutrality and commitment to other more constant values as to which there is general consensus.

The remedy for speech that is false is speech that is true. This is the ordinary course in a free society. The response to the unreasoned is the rational; to the uninformed, the enlightened; to the straight-out lie, the simple truth.

We should proceed carefully and appropriately in filling these important vacancies,

[Conservatives Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas and liberals Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg all mentioned his] fairness. ... unpretentious to the point of being casual.