Truth be told: Noteworthy quotations

“What was in the water?” people ask when they look at the number of luminaries produced by the little town of Pincher Creek – … It was a combination of three things: first, a community that exposed us to books, learning, music, and art; second, time to play, explore, and daydream (in other words, benign parental neglect); and third, responsibility and work.

… what counts in life is finding work that will sustain you and bring you joy

Difference is easy for the people on top. It’s not always easy for those below.

What does it mean to be poor? For some people, being poor is not having a roof over their heads or enough to eat. For others, it’s not having a car. For still others, it’s not having enough money to buy books or art. For me, being poor was a constant state of anxiety.

I understood the meaning of family – people who take you in, no questions asked.

A change is as good as a rest

We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

Joseph Campbell

.. how important it would be to look, really look, at the young person before me, and see her for not what she was, but for what she might become.

Love at its best is magic and inexplicable and overwhelming and tragic. It makes you hope, dream, and suffer. But it is infinitely worth the journey. Of all human engagements, love is the deepest. If you have not loved, you have not truly lived.

.. law is not just a job – it is a way of life, a profession, a social activity that knits individuals into a cohesive whole and makes the entire venture sustainable.

… the practice of law left no time for self-indulgence. Deal with the crisis, get the job done. Into the fray and on. This became the mantra for the rest of my life.

The study of law had brought me joy , and the practice of law gave me deep satisfaction.

Good lawyers develop a unique analytic ability to figure things out, to take the complicated situations humans create, analyze them, and disentangle them so that they can be understood and managed. Laws change. The world changes. Learning a mass of facts about the current state of the law won’t get students far in the real world. What they need to learn is how to think like a lawyer to pick out the relevant facts, apply the appropriate legal principles, and come up with an answer.

Along the way, I absorbed an important truth about life – perfection was unattainable. I developed a revised set of self-directives: Accept imperfection. Embrace risk. Have the courage to fail and the strength to pick yourself up and start over. Do your best and move on.

The word “miracle” is much overused. I reserve it for two events- childbirth and parenting. The emergence into the world of a new being whom two people have mysteriously created- them and yet not them -passes understanding. With time and trouble, one can describe the processes involved. But emotionally, it is a miracle.

Human beings are given certain talents, some more than others. Whatever our endowment, it is our task in life to develop those talents and use them to make the world a better place.

To argue, as some have, that we cannot afford the cost of equal pay to women is to imply that women somehow have a duty to be paid less until other financial priorities are accommodated

Judge Rosalie Silberman Abella

Parenting. Two things are essential: strength of character and unconditional love

Antonymous

Perfection in all things especially in parenting- is unattainable. You just do your best, no matter the inequalities and injustices of life, and enjoy the miracle.

I had learned my first lesson in judging: listen. If you think you know the answer, you probably don’t. If you think you are the smartest person in the room, you’re probably in the wrong room. Listening will help you get the right answer. And even if you don’t get that far, listening in itself is an important part of the trial process.

Whenever I faced a difficult decision, I remembere… take responsibility, search the law and your conscience, and above all, do the right thing.

while it is the duty of the Supreme Court to resolve disputes between either citizens and citizens or citizens and the state, an equally important function is to settle the difficult points of law that society and the legal system throw up.

Prompt justice is an important component of access to justice

Hate speech can do great damage to individuals and to the threads that bind the fragile fabric of our diverse multicultural society. It can stoke hatred against vulnerable people and that can result in discrimination and lead to violence. In an age of escalating hatred and terrorism, it is vital to curtail messages that provoke violence against particular groups. However, the right to express unpopular views is an essential tenet of democracy, and it must be preserved.

Why is consent in the law of sexual assault so difficult? The law or contract has no difficulty dealing with it consent must be clearly in-dicated. The seals and signatures required to establish consent in the law of contract obviously don’t work for sex, but the basic principle is the same: unless a person indicates her consent by word or clear conduct- the proverbial signing on the dotted line it should not be assumed. It isn’t enough that a woman be scantily clad, smile at a man, or even fail to protest his threat or touch; none of these actions imply consent. In fact, the default position is non-consent; sex is a big deal, and as Chief Justice Fraser wrote, women do not go about in a constant state of readiness and acceptance.

The law, imperfect as it may be, is a powerful too in achieving lasting change. But real justice will come only when we change attitudes–when respect for the autonomy of every person replaces old myths grounded in ownership, control, and power.

Grieving, I discovered, is a long and complicated process. Not five steps, ….but a hundred steps, stretching out into a long process that, over the years, moves a person from one place to another, from looking back to looking forward.

when you ask the right question, the right answer is bound to follow

Judges are human beings. They bring their life experiences to the cases they decide. That is good, provided they remember that their ultimate duty is to be faithful to the law.

Former Chief Justice Antonio Lamer

Dissenting judgments are a necessary and respected part of our judicial system, and often they point the way to future legal developments. But insofar as the members of the court can honestly agree on a particular point, I believe they should. The task of the court is to give guidance to the public and the legal profession on issues of law. That guidance is clearer when the court speaks with one voice; a variety of judgments offering slightly different perspectives on a particular point may undermine certainty.

The country is not entitled to nine judges giving their own views; the country is entitled to nine judges giving their views after listening to the views of their eight other colleagues.

Bertha Wilson

As in so many areas of life, the key to achieving maximum consensus was listening

My goal is to do whatever is in my power to help each judge of the court be the best judge he or she can be.

Patricia Wald

Every once in a while, it’s good to look beyond your own backyard

The cost and time required to obtain justice should be proportionate to the grievance to be resolved.