In 2012, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was named one of the U.S.’s Top 10 Woman by Glamour Magazine — not for her couture, though she dresses beautifully, but because, as journalist Dahlia Lithwick says, “The America we live in has Justice Ginsburg’s fingerprints all over it.”

In this brief excerpt from the PBS / AOL series “Makers,” Ruth Bader Ginsburg speaks with humor and understated eloquence about her experience as a pioneering woman lawyer. Notice the simplicity of her statements, and the power they pack:

If a woman this brilliant (#1 in her Harvard Law class), this persistent (turned down by 14 law firms but she kept fighting to get hired), and this influential favors straight-forward, unpretentious speech, maybe it’s time for the rest of us to try it!

UPDATE: On 6/30/14, Justice Ginsburg wrote the dissenting opinion in the Supreme Court’s Sebelius vs. Hobby Lobby case. In strong, clear language, Ginsburg refutes the “majority” decision  that a for-profit company has the right to deny medical services (in this case, birth control) to women because of the owners’ views.

This is just one example of why many of us hope that the powerful and eloquent language of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (“Notorious RBG”) will be heard on the Court for decades to come!