Freedom is one of the deepest and noblest aspirations of the human spirit. - Ronald Reagan

I was lucky. If I ever tired all I had to do was look over my shoulder. Age has its privileges and on this day of memory and reflection I hope you will indulge me in recalling some very special people. I remember a small woman with auburn hair and unquenchable optimism. Her name was Nellie Reagan and she believed with all her heart that there was no such thing as accidents in this life, everything was part of God's plan. If something went wrong you didn't wring your hands, you rolled up your sleeves. And I remember a story-telling salesman with the Irish gift of laughter and a certain American restlessness. In the spirit of this forebearers who had settled on the endless sea of grass that was the Illinois prairie before the turn of the century, Jack Reagan took his family to many new beginnings. Perhaps that was the route of my belief shared with Thomas Paine, that we Americans of all people were uniquely equipped to begin the world over.

You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans.

I have never given a litmus test to anyone that I have appointed to the bench.... I feel very strongly about those social issues, but I also place my confidence in the fact that the one thing that I do seek are judges that will interpret the law and not write the law. We've had too many examples in recent years of courts and judges legislating. They're not interpreting what the law says and whether someone has violated it or not. In too many instances, they have been actually legislating by legal decree what they think the law should be, and that I don't go for. And I think that the two men that we're just talking about here, Rehnquist and Scalia, are interpreters of the Constitution and the law.