Quotes and Sayings about Constitution
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
- John Adams
(Related: Government, People, Constitution, Religious)
"All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation."
- John Adams
(Related: Nature, Virtue, America, Confusion, Constitution, Credit, Honor, Ignorance, Want)
"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks."
- Samuel Adams
(Related: Constitution, Country, Duty, Freedom, Worth)
"The Constitution shall never be construed... to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms."
- Samuel Adams
(Related: People, Constitution, states, United)
"A cloudy day or a little sunshine have as great an influence on many constitutions as the most recent blessings or misfortunes."
- Joseph Addison
(Related: Blessings, Day, Influence)
"Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty acts; in a uniform manner."
- Joseph Addison
(Related: Courage, Constitution, Duty, Man, Sense)
"Be assured, fellow citizens, that in a democracy it is the laws that guard the person of the citizen and the constitution of the state, whereas the despot and the oligarch find their protection in suspicion and in armed guards."
- Aeschines
(Related: Constitution, Democracy, Laws, Protection, State, Suspicion)
"Indians today are governed by two different ideologies. Their political ideal set in the preamble of the Constitution affirms a life of liberty, equality and fraternity. Their social ideal embodied in their religion denies them."
- B. R. Ambedkar
(Related: Equality, Life, Religion, Constitution, Liberty, Today)
"The American Constitution is the greatest governing document, and at some 7,000 words, just about the shortest."
- Stephen Ambrose
(Related: American, Constitution, Words)
"In violation of the Habeas Corpus Act and the fundamental laws of our constitution these men have never been brought to trail or even allowed to see a lawyer."
- John Amery
(Related: Men, Act, Constitution, Laws)
"And truly, when you look at the Constitution and our founding fathers and their writings, the things that made this country great, you might draw those conclusions: That they were conservative. They were fiscally conservative and socially conservative."
- Sharron Angle
(Related: Conservative, Constitution, Country, Fathers, Founding)
"A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state."
- Aristotle
(Related: Constitution, State)
"We have to think outside the box, inside the Constitution, find ways to do things that will elevate our security, reduce the risk of the incidence of terrorist attack."
- John Ashcroft
(Related: Constitution, Risk, Security, Will)
"The path we have chosen is constitutional."
- John Ashcroft
"Nothing that we have authorized conflicts with any law regarding privacy or any provision of the constitution."
- John Ashcroft
(Related: Constitution, Law, Nothing, Privacy)
"We need a strong, bold constitutional conservative who won't back down and who will fight for the values we believe in. That's what we need for our nominee, whether it is me or whether it is someone else."
- Michele Bachmann
(Related: Values, Conservative, Fight, Will)
"I am opposed to any individual taxes until we eliminate all of the unconstitutional agencies, and I suspect we wouldn't need a tax after that."
- Michael Badnarik
(Related: Tax, Taxes)
"The question is: how bad do things have to get before you will do something about it? Where is your line in the sand? If you don't enforce the constitutional limitations on your government very soon, you are likely to find out what World War III will be like."
- Michael Badnarik
(Related: Government, War, Limitations, Question, Will, World, World war)
"Government is necessary for our survival. We need government in order to survive. The Founding Fathers created a special place for government. It is called the Constitution."
- Michael Badnarik
(Related: Government, Survival, Constitution, Fathers, Founding, Order)
"I just want everyone to know that 20,000 gun laws in the United States are unconstitutional. They infringe on your right to protect your life, the lives of your loved ones, and your property."
- Michael Badnarik
(Related: Life, Laws, Property, Right, states, United, Want)
"A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities."
- Walter Bagehot
(Related: Man, Opinions)
"Our constitutional liberties shall not be sacrificed in our search for greater security, for that is what our enemies and all enemies of freedom and democracy hope to achieve."
- Tammy Baldwin
(Related: Hope, Democracy, Enemies, Freedom, Security)
"I mean, the Constitution of this country was written 200 years ago. The house I was living in in Madrid is 350 years old! America is still a project, and you guys are working on it and bringing new things to it every day. That is beautiful to watch."
- Antonio Banderas
(Related: America, Constitution, Country, Day, Living, Project, Years)
"I am fully persuaded that thousands of our fellow-men might profit equally by a similar course to mine; but, constitutions not being all alike, a different course of treatment may be advisable for the removal of so tormenting an affliction."
- William Banting
(Related: Affliction, Being, May, Profit, Treatment)
"Few men have led a more active life - bodily or mentally - from a constitutional anxiety for regularity, precision, and order, during fifty years' business career, from which I had retired."
- William Banting
(Related: Business, Life, Men, Anxiety, Career, Order, Years)
"I will continue my consistent record of voting for lower taxes, less spending and fewer regulations to make our government more effective and efficient while upholding our Constitution."
- Roscoe Bartlett
(Related: Government, Constitution, Taxes, Voting, Will)
"Many seventh graders I know in Illinois, as well as around the Nation, are studying the Constitution. I was pretty impressed with the quality of education our children are receiving because they had not expected me to ask them about it."
- Melissa Bean
(Related: Education, Quality, Children, Constitution, Nation, Pretty)
"Progressivism is the cancer in America and it is eating our Constitution, and it was designed to eat the Constitution, to progress past the Constitution."
- Glenn Beck
(Related: Progress, America, Cancer, Constitution, Eating, Past)
"The fact that the church is convinced of not having the right to confer priestly ordination on women is now considered by some as irreconcilable with the European Constitution."
- Pope Benedict XVI
(Related: Women, Church, Constitution, Fact, Now, Right)
"Marriage and the creation of families has been an integral part of our society since its creation; it should not be defined without the kind of involvement by the people which a constitutional process would require."
- Robert Foster Bennett
(Related: Marriage, Society, People, Creation)
"First of all, there's no mention of political parties in the Constitution, so you begin American history with not only no political conventions but also no parties."
- Michael Beschloss
(Related: History, American, Constitution, First)
"I am constitutionally competent to contest the elections."
- Benazir Bhutto
(Related: Elections)
"The political parties have unanimously rejected the one-man constitutional changes."
- Benazir Bhutto
"The Constitution has not greatly bothered any wartime President."
- Francis Biddle
(Related: Constitution, President)
"Just talk to me as a father - not what the Constitution says. What do you feel?"
- Joe Biden
(Related: Father, Constitution, Talk)
"No Congress ever has seen fit to amend the Constitution to address any issue related to marriage. No Constitutional Amendment was needed to ban polygamy or bigamy, nor was a Constitutional Amendment needed to set a uniform age of majority to ban child marriages."
- Judy Biggert
(Related: Age, Marriage, Congress, Constitution, Majority)
"My role isn't to be politically smart. My role is to do what's right under the constitution. And if that's politically unpopular, so be it."
- Rose E. Bird
(Related: Constitution, Right)
"Our Constitution was not written in the sands to be washed away by each wave of new judges blown in by each successive political wind."
- Hugo Black
(Related: Constitution, Judges, Wind)
"The Framers of the Constitution knew that free speech is the friend of change and revolution. But they also knew that it is always the deadliest enemy of tyranny."
- Hugo Black
(Related: Change, Friend, Constitution, Enemy, Free speech, Revolution, Tyranny)
"The layman's constitutional view is that what he likes is constitutional and that which he doesn't like is unconstitutional."
- Hugo Black
"The right of an individual to conduct intimate relationships in the intimacy of his or her own home seems to me to be the heart of the Constitution's protection of privacy."
- Harry A. Blackmun
(Related: Home, Heart, Constitution, Intimacy, Privacy, Protection, Relationships, Right)
"That the king can do no wrong is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution."
- William Blackstone
(Related: Constitution, English, Wrong)
"While 45 of the 50 States have either a State constitutional amendment or a statute that preserves the current definition of marriage, left-wing activist judges and officials at the local levels have struck down State laws protecting marriage."
- John Boehner
(Related: Marriage, Judges, Laws, State, states)
"Working Americans who believe in our country and who believe in our Constitution are saying, 'Enough is enough!'"
- John Boehner
(Related: Americans, Constitution, Country, Saying)
"And we can celebrate when we have a government that has earned back the trust of the people it serves... when we have a government that honors our Constitution and stands up for the values that have made America, America: economic freedom, individual liberty, and personal responsibility."
- John Boehner
(Related: Government, Trust, People, Values, America, Constitution, Freedom, Liberty, Responsibility)
"The very purpose of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution is to protect minority rights against majority voters. Every court decision that strikes down discriminatory legislation, including past Supreme Court decisions, affirming the fundamental rights to marry the person you love, overrules a majority decision."
- David Boies
(Related: Love, Decision, Purpose, Constitution, Court, Decisions, Rights, Legislation, Majority, Minority, Past)
"A Constitution should be short and obscure."
- Napoleon Bonaparte
(Related: Constitution)
"Drafting a constitution is only the first step. The constitution has to be granted legitimacy by open discussion and a fair, representative referendum."
- Emma Bonino
(Related: Constitution, First, Open)
"Those who made and endorsed our Constitution knew man's nature, and it is to their ideas, rather than to the temptations of utopia, that we must ask that our judges adhere."
- Robert Bork
(Related: Nature, Ideas, Constitution, Judges, Man, Temptations, Utopia)
"The right to procreate is not guaranteed, explicitly or implicitly, by the Constitution."
- Robert Bork
(Related: Constitution, Right)
"The notion that Congress can change the meaning given a constitutional provision by the Court is subversive of the function of judicial review; and it is not the less so because the Court promises to allow it only when the Constitution is moved to the left."
- Robert Bork
(Related: Change, Congress, Constitution, Court, Meaning, Promises)
"In a constitutional democracy the moral content of law must be given by the morality of the framer or legislator, never by the morality of the judge."
- Robert Bork
(Related: Morality, Content, Democracy, Law)
"I don't think the Constitution is studied almost anywhere, including law schools. In law schools, what they study is what the court said about the Constitution. They study the opinions. They don't study the Constitution itself."
- Robert Bork
(Related: Constitution, Court, Law, Opinions, Schools, Study)
"Each state in the Union is honored in the order of when it ratified the Constitution and became a part of the United States. This September it is Iowa's turn. Iowa became the 29th state to be admitted to the union on December 28, 1846."
- Leonard Boswell
(Related: Constitution, December, Order, State, states, United)
"It is unfortunate that Americans are no longer aware of what the constitution says and what their rights are. Because of that, we are often very passive about what happens when the government violates those rights."
- James Bovard
(Related: Government, Americans, Constitution, Rights)
"More students have a better knowledge of pop culture than of the Constitution."
- Charles Bowen
(Related: Knowledge, Constitution, Culture, Students)
"We know no document is perfect, but when we amend the Constitution, it would be to expand rights, not to take away rights from decent, loyal Americans. This great Constitution of ours should never be used to make a group of Americans permanent second-class citizens."
- Barbara Boxer
(Related: Americans, Constitution, Rights)
"To me, that means getting back to the point where our Constitution means that you don't tap people's phones and poke into their e-mail and you don't arrest people and keep them hidden for a year and a half without charging them."
- Carol Moseley Braun
(Related: People, Constitution)
"I think we Americans, of all people, understand the importance of a good, legal, constitutional framework as the basis of political life."
- Paul Bremer
(Related: Life, Legal, People, Americans, Importance)
"I hope they're going to learn, and as a result of our response, that it isn't going to work. They're not going to change our life, they're not going to have us throw out our Constitution, and they're not going to chase us out of the Middle East."
- Paul Bremer
(Related: Change, Life, Work, Hope, Constitution, Result)
"We current justices read the Constitution in the only way that we can: as 20th-century Americans."
- William J. Brennan, Jr.
(Related: Americans, Constitution)
"There are loads of countries that have nice written constitutions like ours. But there aren't loads of countries where they're followed."
- Stephen Breyer
(Related: Countries)
"Demand the ballot as the undeniable right of every man who is called to the poll, and take special care that the old constitutional rule and principle, by which majorities alone shall decide in Parliamentary elections, shall not be violated."
- John Bright
(Related: Care, Elections, Man, Old, Right)
"They had no right, as it seems to me, to prosecute me in these Halls; nor have you the right in law or under the Constitution, as I respectfully submit, to take jurisdiction over offenses committed against them."
- Preston Brooks
(Related: Constitution, Law, Right)
"I do not support a constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriage."
- Corrine Brown
(Related: Marriage, Gay, Support)
"If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane."
- Henry Billings Brown
(Related: Constitution, Race, states, United)
"I would have the Constitution torn in shreds and scattered to the four winds of heaven. Let us destroy the Constitution and build on its ruins the temple of liberty. I have brothers in slavery. I have seen chains placed on their limbs and beheld them captive."
- William Wells Brown
(Related: Temple, Brothers, Constitution, Heaven, Liberty, Slavery)
"None of us takes amending the Constitution lightly. The plain fact is this amendment has been exhaustively studied and it really is time to act."
- Sam Brownback
(Related: Time, Act, Constitution, Fact)
"One camp accepts the Court's limits on contributions but urges the reinstatement of spending caps - even if this requires a constitutional amendment subjecting political speech, if not pornography, to government regulation."
- James L. Buckley
(Related: Government, Court, Limits, Pornography, Speech)
"It would seem, therefore, that this constitutional safeguard may no longer serve its original purpose, especially when, as we learned last year, some acts of perjury may now be acceptable - in this world, at least, if not the next."
- James L. Buckley
(Related: Purpose, May, Now, World)
"Hitler's dictatorship rested on the constitutional foundation of a single law, the Enabling Law."
- Alan Bullock
(Related: Dictatorship, Law)
"The national will is the supreme law of the Republic, and on all subjects within the limits of his constitutional powers should be faithfully obeyed by the public servant."
- Martin Van Buren
(Related: Law, Limits, Public, Will)
"For myself, therefore, I desire to declare that the principle that will govern me in the high duty to which my country calls me is a strict adherence to the letter and spirit of the Constitution as it was designed by those who framed it."
- Martin Van Buren
(Related: Constitution, Country, Desire, Duty, Spirit, Will)
"We may have lured judges into roaming at large in the constitutional field."
- Warren E. Burger
(Related: Judges, May)
"It is indeed an odd business that it has taken this Court nearly two centuries to "discover" a constitutional mandate to have counsel at a preliminary hearing."
- Warren E. Burger
(Related: Business, Court, Hearing)
"Our ideals of freedom, set forth and realized in our Constitution, are our greatest export to the world."
- Robert Byrd
(Related: Constitution, Freedom, Ideals, World)
"And the president is all wrong when he maintains that a nominee should have an up-or-down vote. The Constitution doesn't say that. The Constitution doesn't say that that nominee shall have any vote at all. There doesn't have to even be a vote."
- Robert Byrd
(Related: Constitution, President, Vote, Wrong)
"I have never seen such extreme partisanship, such bitter partisanship, and such forgetfulness of the fate of our fathers and of the Constitution."
- Robert Byrd
(Related: Constitution, Extreme, Fate, Fathers, Forgetfulness)
"It is the Constitution of the United States that has been undermined, undercut, and is under attack. It is the American people's liberties that is in jeopardy. That is why I wrote 'Losing America.'"
- Robert Byrd
(Related: People, America, American, Constitution, Jeopardy, states, United)
"It was the separation of powers upon which the framers placed their hopes for the preservation of the people's liberties. Despite this heritage, the congress has been in too many cases more than willing to walk away from its constitutional powers."
- Robert Byrd
(Related: People, Congress, Separation)
"I really think the Patriot Act violates our Constitution. It was, it is, an illegal act. The Congress, the Senate and the president cannot change the Constitution."
- Peter Camejo
(Related: Change, Act, Congress, Constitution, President, Senate)
"I voted for the Defense of Marriage Act but I do not believe we should institutionalize a form of discrimination against any minority by amending the Constitution."
- Ben Nighthorse Campbell
(Related: Marriage, Act, Constitution, Defense, Discrimination, Minority)
"Until the people, by amendment, change the constitution, I urge that the counties cooperate with one another, that future road work be more uniform, and done in such a way that it will result in connected and continuous highways."
- Arthur Capper
(Related: Change, Work, People, Constitution, Future, Result, Road, Will)
"In our system of democracy, our government works on a system of checks and balances. Instead of stripping power from the courts, I believe we should follow the process prescribed in our Constitution - consideration of a Constitutional amendment."
- Dennis Cardoza
(Related: Government, Power, Consideration, Constitution, Democracy)
"I always made my food congenial to my constitution, and my health was always excellent."
- Giacomo Casanova
(Related: Food, Health, Constitution)
"I oppose a constitutional amendment against gay marriage."
- Ed Case
(Related: Marriage, Gay)
"Indeed, an entire generation of Americans has grown to adulthood since the Roe decision of 1973, which held that the right to choose an abortion was a privacy right protected by our Constitution."
- Robert Casey
(Related: Decision, Abortion, Adulthood, Americans, Constitution, Privacy, Right)
"And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of all mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God."
- Salmon P. Chase
(Related: God, Act, Constitution, Judgment, Justice, Mankind, Military, Necessity)
"The Constitution in all its provisions looks to an indestructible union disposed of indestructible States."
- Salmon Portland Chase
(Related: Constitution, states)
"If the Constitution is worth anything, if the Declaration of Independence is worth anything, if the boys who died on the field of battle did not die in vain, fair employment practices are correct and necessary."
- Dennis Chavez
(Related: Battle, Boys, Constitution, Independence, Worth)
"I didn't know that President Bush would endorse a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage."
- Mary Cheney
(Related: Marriage, President)
"The Constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself."
- John Ciardi
(Related: American, Constitution, Fool, Right)
"Most faults are not in our Constitution, but in ourselves."
- Ramsey Clark
(Related: Constitution, Faults)
"The Constitution of the United States was made not merely for the generation that then existed, but for posterity- unlimited, undefined, endless, perpetual posterity."
- Henry Clay
(Related: Constitution, Posterity, states, United)
"Among the expected glories of the Constitution, next to the abolition of Slavery was that of Rum."
- George Clymer
(Related: Constitution, Slavery)
"To every people the land is given on condition. Perceived or not, there is a Covenant, beyond the constitution, beyond sovereign guarantee, beyond the nation's sweetest dreams of itself."
- Leonard Cohen
(Related: Dreams, People, Constitution, Land, Nation)
"The Magna Carta is widely known to be one of the foundational documents for our Constitution. I can only imagine that a mention of that in a court decision would be forbidden by our friends on the right."
- John Conyers
(Related: Decision, Constitution, Court, Forbidden, Friends, Right)
"To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race."
- Calvin Coolidge
(Related: American, Constitution, Privilege, Race)
"I'm a little skeptical about using the Constitution this way, but I also believe marriage is between a man and a woman and that the courts shouldn't legislate this matter."
- Pete Coors
(Related: Marriage, Constitution, Man, Woman)
"Howard Phillips of the Constitution Party asked me to consider seriously running for president in 2008 and I am doing so."
- Jerome Corsi
(Related: Constitution, Party, President, Running)
"Flag desecration is not a constitutional issue for the courts. It is a political one that belongs to the people."
- Larry Craig
(Related: People)
"The Constitution was the expression not only of a political faith, but also of political fears. It was wrought both as the organ of the national interest and as the bulwark of certain individual and local rights."
- Herbert Croly
(Related: Faith, Constitution, Expression, Rights, Interest)
"The adoption by Jefferson and the Republicans of the political structure of their opponents is of an importance hardly inferior to that of the adoption of the Constitution by the states."
- Herbert Croly
(Related: Adoption, Constitution, Importance, Opponents, Republicans, states)
"One of the things I learned in law school is that there's nothing wrong or undesirable or dishonorable or destructive about amending the Constitution."
- Adrian Cronauer
(Related: Constitution, Law, Nothing, School, Wrong)
"It's not written in the Constitution or anything else.... Congress, just out of the clear blue sky, said the airwaves belong to the people, which means, in essence, that it belongs to Congress."
- Adrian Cronauer
(Related: People, Congress, Constitution, Sky)
"It is the will of the American people that we have a right to protect our flag and this can only be accomplished by passing a Constitutional amendment."
- Adrian Cronauer
(Related: People, American, Right, Will)
"A corollary is that, when laws are out of touch with the people, those laws can and should be changed - from the most simple local regulations to the highest law of the land, our federal Constitution."
- Adrian Cronauer
(Related: People, Constitution, Land, Law, Laws)
"The right of petition, I have said, was not conferred on the People by the Constitution, but was a pre-existing right, reserved by the People out of the grants of power made to Congress."
- Caleb Cushing
(Related: Power, People, Congress, Constitution, Right)
"You well know, sir, that when the Constitution was submitted to the People of the respective States for their adoption or rejection, it awakened the warmest debates of the several State conventions."
- Caleb Cushing
(Related: People, Adoption, Constitution, Rejection, State, states)
"Upon the Constitution, upon the pre-existing legal rights of the People, as understood in this country and in England, I have argued that this House is bound to revive the Petition under debate."
- Caleb Cushing
(Related: Legal, People, Constitution, Country, Debate, EnglRights)
"Men of Virginia, countrymen of Washington, of Patrick Henry, of Jefferson, and of Madison, will ye be true to your constitutional faith?"
- Caleb Cushing
(Related: Faith, Men, Washington, Will)
"I maintain that the House is bound by the Constitution to receive the petitions; after which, it will take such method of deciding upon them as reason and principle shall dictate."
- Caleb Cushing
(Related: Constitution, Reason, Will)
"Be the responsibility on their heads who raise this novel and extraordinary question of reception, going to the unconstitutional abridgment, as I conceive, of the great right of petition inherent in the People of the United States."
- Caleb Cushing
(Related: People, Question, Responsibility, Right, states, United)
"Some of them, in accepting the proposed plan of government, coupled their acceptance with a recommendation of various additions to the Constitution, which they deemed essential to the preservation of the rights of the States, or of the People."
- Caleb Cushing
(Related: Government, People, Acceptance, Constitution, Rights, states)
"Our government leaders... have made many mistakes in the past when they have lost sight of the sacred American values rooted in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. We are at the brink of even graver mistakes and assaults on these values."
- Samuel Dash
(Related: Government, Values, American, Constitution, Independence, Leaders, Mistakes, Past, Sight)
"Well for one, the 13th amendment to the constitution of the US which abolished slavery - did not abolish slavery for those convicted of a crime."
- Angela Davis
(Related: Constitution, Crime, Slavery)
"The repeal of racist language in the Constitution of Alabama was and still is a necessary step in the state's ability to progress."
- Artur Davis
(Related: Progress, Ability, Constitution, Language, State)
"The constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances."
- David Davis
(Related: War, Men, Peace, People, Circumstances, Constitution, Law, Protection, states, United)
"I'd love to thwart the Census form, but I want a constitutional basis for doing it - and here's the tricky thing. I think even constitutional purists would tell you that just because something isn't in the Constitution does not mean the government cannot do it."
- Mark Davis
(Related: Government, Love, Constitution, Want)
"Our national media refuses to report that even the Supreme Court did not say marriage was a human right in all cases nor did it say that the heterosexual definition violated anyone's right or that the heterosexual definition of marriage was unconstitutional."
- Stockwell Day
(Related: Marriage, Court, Media, Right)
"I wish the government and the Minister of Justice would address these legal and constitutional arguments, but they refuse to. They want Canadians to go blindly into their brave new world, but it is not wise for a society to move blindly in any direction."
- Stockwell Day
(Related: Government, Legal, Society, Arguments, Direction, Justice, Want, World)
"Canada evolved within the British Empire: it inherited the Parliamentary system, the Cabinet system and all the other features of the British constitutional system which had been in place, for the most part, for several centuries before Canada was even thought of."
- Stockwell Day
(Related: Thought, Canada)
"I am not a federal employee. I am a constitutional officer. My job is the Constitution of the United States, I am not a government employee. I am in the Constitution."
- Tom DeLay
(Related: Government, Constitution, Job, states, United)
"I don't believe there is a separation of church and state. I think the Constitution is very clear. The only separation is that there will not be a government church."
- Tom DeLay
(Related: Government, Church, Constitution, Separation, State, Will)
"This is a time for a national conversation. A conversation about the document that binds us as a nation and a people. That document, of course, is the Constitution."
- Mike DeWine
(Related: Time, People, Constitution, Conversation, Nation)
"The mind is no match with the heart in persuasion; constitutionality is no match with compassion."
- Everett Dirksen
(Related: Heart, Compassion, Mind, Persuasion)
"The U.S. Constitution is the basic framework for the greatest democracy on Earth. Some of my colleagues find it easy to amend it. I don't."
- Byron Dorgan
(Related: Constitution, Democracy, Earth)
"The critical point is that the Constitution places the right of silence beyond the reach of government."
- William O. Douglas
(Related: Government, Constitution, Right, Silence)
"The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people."
- William O. Douglas
(Related: Government, People, Constitution)
"At the constitutional level where we work, 90 percent of any decision is emotional. The rational part of us supplies the reasons for supporting our predilections."
- William O. Douglas
(Related: Work, Decision)
"Our country is not in crisis; there are no tanks in the streets. No matter what the outcome of the president's situation, life in America will go on. Our lives will continue to be filled with practical matters, not constitutional ones."
- Jennifer Dunn
(Related: Life, America, Country, Crisis, President, Will)
"A new constitution should be more amendable. A needlessly confusing system of courts should be altered to produce an arrangement that would be simple, responsible, and less awkward."
- Charles Edison
(Related: Constitution)
"Our society cannot progress while our constitution stands still."
- Charles Edison
(Related: Society, Progress, Constitution)
"We have to remind the people: Congress has the constitutional obligation and public responsibility to oversee these issues and the Department of Justice's operations."
- Sibel Edmonds
(Related: Congress, Justice, Obligation, Public, Responsibility)
"The British Constitution has always been puzzling and always will be."
- Queen Elizabeth II
(Related: Constitution, Will)
"Only we, the public, can force our representatives to reverse their abdication of the war powers that the Constitution gives exclusively to the Congress."
- Daniel Ellsberg
(Related: War, Congress, Constitution, Force, Public)
"Every man is a consumer, and ought to be a producer. He is by constitution expensive, and needs to be rich."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Related: Constitution, Man, Needs)
"Preventing terrorist attacks is of the highest important, but trashing the Constitution is not the right way to do it."
- Eliot Engel
(Related: Constitution, Right)
"I created no authority that wasn't already there under the constitution."
- John Engler
(Related: Authority, Constitution)
"We didn't pass any constitutional amendments that affected the executive branch while I was governor."
- John Engler
"The current Michigan Constitution was written in 1961 and '62."
- John Engler
(Related: Constitution)
"I've been in the legislative branch and now the executive branch and in each case I felt it was important we use our constitutional responsibilities to the fullest."
- John Engler
(Related: Now)
"I will for ever, at all hazards, assert the dignity, independence, and integrity of the English bar; without which, impartial justice, the most valuable part of the English constitution, can have no existence."
- Thomas Erskine
(Related: Constitution, Dignity, English, Existence, Independence, Integrity, Justice, Will)
"There are 20 million unemployed and what does the Constitution offer us in the Europe of 25, 27 and soon to be 30: policies of unrestricted competition to the detriment of production, wages, research and innovation."
- Laurent Fabius
(Related: Competition, Constitution, Europe, Innovation, Production, Research, Wages)
"This revision of the Constitution will not be perfect. But at least the Constitution will not be inflexible. It will be a step towards the Social Europe which we wish."
- Laurent Fabius
(Related: Constitution, Europe, Will)
"At the same time the Constitution sets in stone the Stability Pact and risks preventing member States from implementing a policy of growth. So we are not able to do things at the European or the national level."
- Laurent Fabius
(Related: Time, Policy, Growth, Constitution, Stability, states)
"This Constitution does not reflect the thoughts, hopes and aspirations of ordinary people. It does nothing for jobs or economic growth and widens further still the democratic deficit."
- Nigel Farage
(Related: People, Growth, Thoughts, Aspirations, Constitution, Jobs, Nothing)
"For the life of me, I don't understand what honest motive there is in putting this in front of this body to philosophically debate marriage on a constitutional amendment that is not going to happen, and which is enormously divisive in all of our communities."
- Dianne Feinstein
(Related: Life, Marriage, Body, Debate, Motive)
"Oh, if I had been loved at the age of seventeen, what an idiot I would be today. Happiness is like smallpox: if you catch it too soon, it can completely ruin your constitution."
- Gustave Flaubert
(Related: Age, Happiness, Constitution, Ruin, Today)
"I'm a child of the sixties, I'm a man of the sixties. During that period of time this country was coming apart at the seams. We were in Southeast Asia. Good men were dying for America and for the Constitution."
- Curt Flood
(Related: Men, Time, America, Constitution, Country, Dying, Man)
"On February 7, 2.2 million Haitians went to the polls and exercised their constitutional right to select a leader. They went by foot, by tap tap and other forms of transportation, traveling hours and standing in line for almost a day to get to their polling places."
- Mark Foley
(Related: Leader, Day, February, Right, Traveling)
"Our constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws, not of men."
- Gerald R. Ford
(Related: Government, Men, Constitution, Laws)
"The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself and not what we have said about it."
- Felix Frankfurter
(Related: Constitution)
"All our work, our whole life is a matter of semantics, because words are the tools with which we work, the material out of which laws are made, out of which the Constitution was written. Everything depends on our understanding of them."
- Felix Frankfurter
(Related: Life, Work, Constitution, Laws, Semantics, Tools, Understanding, Words)
"As a member of this court I am not justified in writing my private notions of policy into the Constitution, no matter how deeply I may cherish them or how mischievous I may deem their disregard."
- Felix Frankfurter
(Related: Policy, Constitution, Court, May, Writing)
"The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."
- Benjamin Franklin
(Related: Happiness, People, Constitution, Right)
"The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself."
- Benjamin Franklin
(Related: Happiness, Constitution, Pursuit)
"I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning."
- Benjamin Franklin
(Related: Death, Constitution, Sleep)
"If the United States is hit with a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government."
- Tommy Franks
(Related: Government, Constitution, Destruction, Military, states, United, Will)
"The fifth amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees that no private property shall be taken for a public use without the payment of just compensation."
- Elton Gallegly
(Related: Constitution, Property, Public)
"There is no reason for anyone in this country, anyone except a police officer or a military person, to buy, to own, to have, to use a handgun... and the only way to do that is to change the Constitution."
- Michael Gartner
(Related: Change, Constitution, Country, Military, Police, Reason)
"Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty."
- Edward Gibbon
(Related: Corruption, Liberty)
"The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive."
- Edward Gibbon
(Related: Power, Constitution, Principles)
"While not widely reported, our victories in Iraq are plentiful. National elections, a democratic parliament and the drafting of a constitution are just some of the victories throughout this embattled country."
- Paul Gillmor
(Related: Constitution, Country, Elections, Iraq, Parliament)
"Arizona presents no specific reason for excepting capital defendants from the constitutional protections extended to defendants generally, and none is readily apparent."
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg
(Related: Reason)
"All respect for the office of the presidency aside, I assumed that the obvious and unadulterated decline of freedom and constitutional sovereignty, not to mention the efforts to curb the power of judicial review, spoke for itself."
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg
(Related: Power, Freedom, Obvious, Office, Presidency, Respect)
"All I will say is that there are particular features of the American constitutional system that renders a third party futile - at best."
- Todd Gitlin
(Related: American, Party, Will)
"The concept of neutrality can lead to a brooding and pervasive devotion to the secular and a passive, or even active, hostility to the religious. Such results are not only not compelled by the Constitution, but, it seems to me, are prohibited by it."
- Arthur J. Goldberg
(Related: Constitution, Devotion, Neutrality, Religious, Results)
"The basic guarantees of our Constitution are warrants for the here and now, and unless there is an overwhelmingly compelling reason, they are to be promptly fulfilled."
- Arthur J. Goldberg
(Related: Constitution, Now, Reason)
"Our democracy, our constitutional framework is really a kind of software for harnessing the creativity and political imagination for all of our people. The American democratic system was an early political version of Napster."
- Al Gore
(Related: Imagination, People, Creativity, American, Democracy, Software)
"The framers of our Constitution meant we were to have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion."
- Billy Graham
(Related: Religion, Constitution, Freedom)
"Having removed the dictator, the allies have moved to put Iraqis in control of Iraq. Now, as they draft and ratify their Constitution, we will indeed see the character of a new Iraqi nation revealed through the principles it chooses to uphold."
- Kay Granger
(Related: Character, Control, Constitution, Draft, Iraq, Nation, Now, Principles, Will)
"The real difference between the United States and other nations lies not in the words of the preamble to the Constitution, but in the fact that the substantive clauses of that Constitution are enforced by individuals independent of and not beholden to the elected branches."
- Harold H. Greene
(Related: Constitution, Difference, Fact, Lies, Nations, states, United, Words)
"The Constitution of the United States allows us to change; I don't have a problem with that."
- Lee Greenwood
(Related: Change, Constitution, states, United)
"The right to be let alone is the underlying principle of the Constitution's Bill of Rights."
- Erwin Griswold
(Related: Constitution, Rights)
"You hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to myself, 'That man is a Red, that man is a Communist!' You never hear a real American talk like that."
- Frank Hague
(Related: Time, American, Free speech, Rights, Man, Press, Talk, Words)
"Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things."
- Alexander Hamilton
(Related: Change, Reason)
"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it."
- Learned Hand
(Related: Men, Women, Constitution, Court, Law, Liberty, Lies)
"It lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it. While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it."
- Learned Hand
(Related: Men, Women, Constitution, Court, Law, Lies, Needs)
"We came to say, the Quran is our constitution, we are committed to God and his holy book. God willing, should they try to carry out their crime against the Quran, God will tear their state apart and they will become God's lesson to anyone who tries to desecrate the holy book."
- Ismail Haniyeh
(Related: God, Quran, Constitution, Crime, State, Will)
"It doesn't say anywhere in the Constitution this idea of the separation of church and state."
- Sean Hannity
(Related: Idea, Church, Constitution, Separation, State)
"Like the British Constitution, she owes her success in practice to her inconsistencies in principle."
- Thomas Hardy
(Related: Success, Constitution, Practice)
"The Constitution is not a panacea for every blot upon the public welfare. Nor should this Court, ordained as a judicial body, be thought of as a general haven for reform movements."
- John Marshall Harlan
(Related: Thought, Body, Constitution, Court, Public, Reform, Welfare)
"Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens."
- John Marshall Harlan
(Related: Constitution)
"But in view of the constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here."
- John Marshall Harlan
(Related: Class, Constitution, Country, Eye, Law)
"The Leader of the Opposition's constitutional obligation - the obligation to Parliament - it's the reason we did the merger! - is to make sure Canadians have an alternative for government."
- Stephen Harper
(Related: Government, Leader, Obligation, Opposition, Parliament, Reason)
"The growth of constitutional government, as we now understand it, was promoted by the establishment of two different sets of machinery for making laws and carrying on government."
- Albert Bushnell Hart
(Related: Government, Growth, Laws, Now)
"Judges who take the law into their own hands, who make up constitutional 'rights' in order to strike down laws they oppose, undermine the people's right to have their values shape public policy and define the culture."
- Orrin Hatch
(Related: People, Policy, Values, Culture, Judges, Law, Laws, Order, Public, Public policy, Right)
"We are losing our living systems, social systems, cultural systems, governing systems, stability, and our constitutional health, and we're surrendering it all at the same time."
- Paul Hawken
(Related: Time, Health, Living, Losing, Stability)
"Those who served, and those who continue to serve in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard took an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, and we can never forget the importance of their commitment to our Nation."
- Robin Hayes
(Related: Army, Commitment, Constitution, Enemies, Force, Forget, Importance, Marines, Nation, Navy)
"And it seems to me in that experience may lie at least some of the clues for policy development perhaps constitutional changes as well that Labour will need to make at the national level too."
- Patricia Hewitt
(Related: Experience, Lie, Policy, Development, May, Will)
"So too, in forming a constitution, or in enacting rules of procedure, or making canons, the people do not merely passively assent, but actively cooperate. They have, in all these matters, the same authority as the clergy."
- Charles Hodge
(Related: People, Authority, Constitution, Rules)
"If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought, not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
(Related: Thought, Constitution, Freedom, Hate)
"The Constitution is never tested during times of tranquility; it is during times of tension, turmoil, tragedy, trauma, and terrorism that it is sorely tested."
- Mike Honda
(Related: Constitution, Tension, Terrorism, Tragedy, Tranquility)
"The Constitution was written by 55 educated and highly intelligent men in Philadelphia in 1787, but it was written so that it could be understood by people of limited education and modest intelligence."
- John Jay Hooker
(Related: Education, Intelligence, Men, People, Constitution)
"It is preposterous that the current members of the United States Senate and all of their predecessors for more than 200 years haven't been able to read the Constitution and do what it says."
- John Jay Hooker
(Related: Constitution, Senate, states, United, Years)
"The Constitution gives the president the power to appoint, upon the advice and consent of a majority of the Senate, and it plainly does not give a minority of senators any right to interfere with that process."
- John Jay Hooker
(Related: Power, Advice, Constitution, Majority, Minority, President, Right, Senate, Senators)
"If you are a friend of the Constitution as I am, I hope you will consider engaging me in the topics of my posts whether you agree or disagree with my position on a particular subject."
- John Jay Hooker
(Related: Friend, Hope, Constitution, Will)
"Attending that Convention and talking with those people and many others convinced me that I should become a blogger in my efforts to reform the government and uphold the integrity of the Constitution and the laws made in furtherance thereof."
- John Jay Hooker
(Related: Government, People, Constitution, Integrity, Laws, Reform, Talking)
"For thirty years, beginning with the invention of a privacy right in the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, the Left has been waging a systematic assault on the constitutional foundation of the nation."
- David Horowitz
(Related: Decision, Beginning, Court, Invention, Nation, Privacy, Right, Years)
"In the name of the constitution of Texas, which has been trampled upon, I refuse to take this oath. I love Texas too well to bring civil strife and bloodshed upon her."
- Sam Houston
(Related: Love, Constitution, Name)
"We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is, and the judiciary is the safeguard of our property and our liberty and our property under the Constitution."
- Charles Evans Hughes
(Related: Constitution, Judges, Liberty, Property)
"In fact, my mom always told me because I was the daughter of an Army officer born overseas in Paris, France, that under the Constitution she believed that I could never run for president."
- Karen Hughes
(Related: Mom, Daughter, Army, Constitution, Fact, France, Paris, President)
"We have to worry about protecting the Constitution."
- Karen Hughes
(Related: Constitution, Worry)
"I didn't say 'former president,' I said 'president,' and I have the constitutional rights according to the constitution, including immunity from prosecution."
- Saddam Hussein
(Related: Constitution, Rights, President)
"Tolerance is carved into the rostrum of the U.S. House of Representatives and intolerance should not be carved into the U.S. Constitution."
- Jay Inslee
(Related: Constitution, Intolerance)
"Let there be no reservation or doubt that I believe the Senate should vote on each and every judicial appointment made by the President of the United States and that no rule or procedure should ever stop the Senate from exercising its constitutional responsibility."
- Johnny Isakson
(Related: Doubt, President, Responsibility, Senate, states, United, Vote)
"The US constitution's First Amendment rights only cover Americans, but I believe that in a democracy the competition of ideas and free speech should combat beliefs that it does not agree with - more speech and debate, not censorship."
- Joichi Ito
(Related: Ideas, Americans, Beliefs, Censorship, Competition, Constitution, Debate, Democracy, First, Free speech, Rights)
"It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America."
- Molly Ivins
(Related: History, America, Constitution, Country, Struggle)
"It was settled by the Constitution, the laws, and the whole practice of the government that the entire executive power is vested in the President of the United States."
- Andrew Jackson
(Related: Government, Power, Constitution, Laws, Practice, President, states, United)
"All the rights secured to the citizens under the Constitution are worth nothing, and a mere bubble, except guaranteed to them by an independent and virtuous Judiciary."
- Andrew Jackson
(Related: Constitution, Rights, Nothing, Worth)
"The great constitutional corrective in the hands of the people against usurpation of power, or corruption by their agents is the right of suffrage; and this when used with calmness and deliberation will prove strong enough."
- Andrew Jackson
(Related: Power, People, Corruption, Right, Will)
"The Constitution and the laws are supreme and the Union indissoluble."
- Andrew Jackson
(Related: Constitution, Laws)
"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act."
- Robert Jackson
(Related: Politics, Religion, Act, Force, Nationalism, Opinion, Word)
"From Watergate we learned what generations before us have known; our Constitution works. And during Watergate years it was interpreted again so as to reaffirm that no one - absolutely no one - is above the law."
- Leon Jaworski
(Related: Constitution, Generations, Law, Years)
"The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed."
- Thomas Jefferson
(Related: Power, People, Duty, Right, states)
"Outside of the Constitution we have no legal authority more than private citizens, and within it we have only so much as that instrument gives us. This broad principle limits all our functions and applies to all subjects."
- Andrew Johnson
(Related: Legal, Authority, Constitution, Limits)
"I am sworn to uphold the Constitution as Andy Johnson understands it and interprets it."
- Andrew Johnson
(Related: Constitution)
"Honest conviction is my courage; the Constitution is my guide."
- Andrew Johnson
(Related: Courage, Constitution, Conviction)
"It is the genius of our Constitution that under its shelter of enduring institutions and rooted principles there is ample room for the rich fertility of American political invention."
- Lyndon B. Johnson
(Related: Genius, American, Constitution, Invention, Principles)
"A constitutional democracy is in serious trouble if its citizenry does not have a certain degree of education and civic virtue."
- Phillip E. Johnson
(Related: Education, Virtue, Democracy, Trouble)
"Our Constitution recognises no other power than that of persuasion, for enforcing religious observances."
- Richard Mentor Johnson
(Related: Power, Constitution, Persuasion, Religious)
"The miners lost because they had only the constitution. The other side had bayonets. In the end, bayonets always win."
- Mother Jones
(Related: Constitution, End)
"The right of election is the very essence of the constitution."
- Junius
(Related: Constitution, Right)
"What my political views or my constitutional views are just doesn't matter."
- Elena Kagan
"If I am confirmed, I will commit to show Heller and the principles articulated in it the full measure of respect that is due to all constitution decisions of the court."
- Elena Kagan
(Related: Constitution, Court, Decisions, Measure, Principles, Respect, Will)
"And what my constitutional values are are wholly irrelevant to the job, and so neither you nor anyone else will know what they are."
- Elena Kagan
(Related: Values, Job, Will)
"I do not espouse the unitarian position. President Clinton's assertion of directive authority over administration, more than President Reagan's assertion of a general supervisory authority, raises serious constitutional questions."
- Elena Kagan
(Related: Authority, President, Questions)
"To be sure, in some instances these proceedings have been unconstitutional, but we must remember that it is not the first time since a war that there have been changes in governments by such methods."
- Frank B. Kellogg
(Related: Time, War, First)
"A great number of the women are victims to falling of the womb and weakness in the spine; but these are necessary results of their laborious existence, and do not belong either to climate or constitution."
- Fanny Kemble
(Related: Women, Climate, Constitution, Existence, Results, Victims, Weakness)
"The case for freedom, the case for our constitutional principles the case for our heritage has to be made anew in each generation. The work of freedom is never done."
- Anthony Kennedy
(Related: Work, Freedom, Principles)
"As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom."
- Anthony Kennedy
(Related: Constitution, Freedom, Principles)
"The Constitution does not just protect those whose views we share; it also protects those with whose views we disagree."
- Edward Kennedy
(Related: Constitution)
"The vote, cast in a free atmosphere and with all inclinations and parties at present, was after all a vote to the Islamic Republic, to national independence, to the Constitution and to the Islamic causes."
- Ayatollah Khamenei
(Related: Causes, Constitution, Independence, Present, Vote)
"The constitution is the ultimate custodian of social will and its making should be accorded all due diligence."
- Mwai Kibaki
(Related: Constitution, Diligence, Will)
"Judicial review has been a part of our democracy in this constitutional government for over 200 years."
- Ron Kind
(Related: Government, Democracy, Years)
"That's the key: get the constitution in place. Get rule of law in place, capital will come, electricity will follow."
- Steve King
(Related: Constitution, Electricity, Law, Will)
"Our Founding Fathers crafted a constitutional Republic for the first time in the history of the world because they were shaping a form of government that would not have the failures of a democracy in it, but had the representation of democracy in it."
- Steve King
(Related: Government, History, Time, Democracy, Fathers, First, Founding, World)
"So far, 44 States, or 88 percent of the States, have enacted laws providing that marriage shall consist of a union between a man and a woman. Only 75 percent of the States are required to approve a constitutional amendment."
- Jack Kingston
(Related: Marriage, Laws, Man, states, Woman)
"Almost any government activity can also be seen as taking property "without just compensation." The basic model of an unconstitutional "taking" would be if the government threw you out of your house."
- Michael Kinsley
(Related: Government, Property)
"A Supreme Court decision that concessions of this sort were unconstitutional would have taken them off the table and actually increased the effective sovereignty of elected officials."
- Michael Kinsley
(Related: Decision, Court)
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer."
- Henry A. Kissinger
"The frame of mind in the local legislatures seems to be exerted to prevent the federal constitution from having any good effect."
- Henry Knox
(Related: Constitution, Effect, Mind)
"I thought what the military was doing was unconstitutional."
- Fred Korematsu
(Related: Thought, Military)
"The house of Austria has publicly used every effort to deprive the country of its legitimate Independence and Constitution, designing to reduce it to a level with the other provinces long since deprived of all freedom, and to unite all in a common sink of slavery."
- Lajos Kossuth
(Related: Constitution, Country, Effort, Freedom, Independence, Slavery)
"The Hungarian ministry begged the king earnestly to issue orders to all troops and commanders of fortresses in Hungary, enjoining fidelity to the Constitution, and obedience to the ministers of Hungary."
- Lajos Kossuth
(Related: Commanders, Constitution, Fidelity, Obedience, Troops)
"I came not to your glorious shores to enjoy a happy rest - I came not to gather triumphs of personal distinction, but as a humble petitioner, in my country's name, as its freely chosen constitutional leader, to entreat your generous aid."
- Lajos Kossuth
(Related: Leader, Country, Name, Rest)
"In the book I define conservatism, as I believe it is fit upon four categories of principle: respect for The Constitution, respect for life, less government, and personal responsibility."
- Jonathan Krohn
(Related: Government, Life, Conservatism, Constitution, Respect, Responsibility)
"There are only two ways to remove the president - if he violates the constitution or commits high treason. How could anyone accuse me of treason after I had terminated Israel's occupation of South Lebanon in 2000."
- Emile Lahoud
(Related: Constitution, Israel, Occupation, President, Treason)
"Owing to the difficulty of dealing with substances of high molecular weight we are still a long way from having determined the chemical characteristics and the constitution of proteins, which are regarded as the principal con-stituents of living organisms."
- Karl Landsteiner
(Related: Constitution, Difficulty, Living, Weight)
"The constitutional questions are in the first instance not questions of right but questions of might."
- Ferdinand Lassalle
(Related: First, Questions, Right)
"The Iraqis have once again failed to meet a deadline for a final draft of the constitution."
- Matt Lauer
(Related: Constitution, Draft)
"I wish the press were paying more attention to the erosion of the Constitution and the slippery slope that we're getting into, by giving up the right of the Congress to talk about when and how and where we go to war."
- Barbara Lee
(Related: War, Attention, Congress, Constitution, Giving, Press, Right, Talk)
"When cerebral processes enter into sports, you start screwing up. It's like the Constitution, which says separate church and state. You have to separate mind and body."
- Bill Lee
(Related: Sports, Church, Body, Constitution, Mind, State)
"As we've seen, our constitutional system requires limits on copyright as a way to assure that copyright holders do not too heavily influence the development and distribution of our culture."
- Lawrence Lessig
(Related: Development, Culture, Influence, Limits)
"The Constitution is a document that should only be amended with great caution."
- Carl Levin
(Related: Caution, Constitution)
"My grandfather, on my father's side, helped to draft one of the first constitutions of China. He was a fairly well-known scholar."
- Maya Lin
(Related: Father, Draft, First)
"We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."
- Abraham Lincoln
(Related: Men, People, Congress, Constitution)
"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it."
- Abraham Lincoln
(Related: Government, People, Country, Exercise, Right)
"Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties."
- Abraham Lincoln
(Related: Constitution)
"We can only undo the election if the behavior meets the constitutional standard of subverting and threatening our system of government."
- Zoe Lofgren
(Related: Government, Behavior)
"I think the motive is to establish in federal law the personhood from conception forward and try and alter the Constitution through statute."
- Zoe Lofgren
(Related: Constitution, Law, Motive)
"Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor."
- Thomas B. Macaulay
(Related: Constitution)
"A good constitution is infinitely better than the best despot."
- Thomas B. Macaulay
(Related: Constitution)
"The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world."
- James Madison
(Related: Hope, Constitution, Example, Liberty, states, Wonder, World)
"The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."
- James Madison
(Related: Trust, People, Americans, Being, Constitution, Nation)
"The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived."
- James Madison
(Related: Government, Power, People)
"Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government."
- James Madison
(Related: Government, Constitution, End, Will)
"This has been a learning experience for me. I also thought that privacy was something we were granted in the Constitution. I have learned from this when in fact the word privacy does not appear in the Constitution."
- Bill Maher
(Related: Experience, Thought, Constitution, Fact, Learning, Privacy, Word)
"Hosni Mubarak... his constitution is not democratic, but he is democratic. We can voice our opinions now. The press is free."
- Naguib Mahfouz
(Related: Constitution, Now, Opinions, Press, Voice)
"A constitution that is made for all nations is made for none."
- Joseph de Maistre
(Related: Constitution, Nations)
"If the constitutional treaty is rejected it will be back to square one, just at a time when we want Europe to be a more effective force for good in the world, when we need to buttress ourselves against the pressures and insecurities of globalization."
- Peter Mandelson
(Related: Time, Europe, Force, Globalization, Want, Will, World)
"If the constitution goes, I go."
- Kamisese Mara
(Related: Constitution)
"Unfortunately a Constitutional amendment that would have empowered Congress to make desecration of the United States flag illegal failed to pass by one vote."
- Kenny Marchant
(Related: Congress, states, United, Vote)
"Today's Constitution is a realistic document of freedom only because of several corrective amendments. Those amendments speak to a sense of decency and fairness that I and other Blacks cherish."
- Thurgood Marshall
(Related: Constitution, Decency, Freedom, Sense, Today)
"Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds."
- Thurgood Marshall
(Related: Government, Power, Thought, Control, Giving)
"As far as military necessity will permit, religiously respect the constitutional rights of all."
- George McClellan
(Related: Rights, Military, Necessity, Respect, Will)
"The health care reform legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last night clearly violates the U.S. Constitution and infringes on each state's sovereignty."
- Bill McCollum
(Related: Health, Care, Constitution, Legislation, Night, Reform, State)
"It took us in this country 11 years to get from the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution."
- Mitch McConnell
(Related: Constitution, Country, Independence, Years)
"This election is a critical step in that overall plan - transforming the Iraqi government into a fully constitutional one, able to secure its own borders and ensure the safety of its citizens."
- John M. McHugh
(Related: Government, Safety)
"My answer to the racial problem in America is to not deal with it at all. The founding fathers dealt with it when they made the Constitution."
- James Meredith
(Related: America, Constitution, Fathers, Founding)
"And I think we as a people need to stop being disingenuous about what the Constitution provides for. It does not provide for this all-encompassing power that we've seen exercised over the last several decades. It's what's gotten us into this bankrupt position."
- Joe Miller
(Related: Power, People, Being, Constitution)
"We just simply want to get back to basics, get - restore essentially the constitutional foundation of the country, and that means the federal government becoming less onerous, less involved in every - basically every item of our lives. And what that means is there does have to be some transition."
- Joe Miller
(Related: Government, Country, Want)
"The Constitution was about a limitation on power."
- Roy Moore
(Related: Power, Constitution)
"The First Amendment to the Constitution reflects that concept recognized in the Ten Commandments, that the duties we owe to God and the manner of discharging those duties are outside the purview of government."
- Roy Moore
(Related: Government, God, Constitution, First)
"The whole basis of the Constitution was a restriction of power, and the whole basis of the federalist system was that there was not one sovereign centralized power from which all authority flows."
- Roy Moore
(Related: Power, Authority, Constitution)
"The basic premise of the Constitution was a separation of powers and a system of checks and balances because man was perceived as a fallen creature and would always yearn for more power."
- Roy Moore
(Related: Power, Constitution, Man, Separation)
"Power's not what the Constitution was about."
- Roy Moore
(Related: Power, Constitution)
"The truth is that I'm constitutionally incapable of doing an ordinary job."
- Dylan Moran
(Related: Truth, Job)
"The Constitution, as originally drawn, made no reference to the fact that all Americans wre considered equal members of society."
- Constance Baker Motley
(Related: Society, Americans, Constitution, Fact)
"No constitution is or can be perfectly symmetrical, what it can and must be is generally accepted as both fair and usable."
- Ferdinand Mount
(Related: Constitution)
"I think it's a pity that in many people's minds constitutional reform and PR have come to mean much the same thing."
- Ferdinand Mount
(Related: People, Pity, Reform)
"The relationship between press and politician - protected by the Constitution and designed to be happily adversarial - becomes sour, raw and confrontational."
- Roger Mudd
(Related: Constitution, Press)
"It may be necessary to use methods other than constitutional ones."
- Robert Mugabe
(Related: May)
"We would be false to our trust if we allowed the time it takes to give effect to constitutional rights to be used as the very reason for taking away those rights."
- Frank Murphy
(Related: Time, Trust, Effect, Rights, Reason)
"There are no insuperable constitutional difficulties."
- Lionel K. Murphy
(Related: Difficulties)
"In the span of three years, the Iraqi people participated in three elections, drafted a constitution, and elected a new government. While more work remains, this is remarkable progress."
- Tim Murphy
(Related: Work, Government, People, Progress, Constitution, Elections, Remarkable, Years)
"The last thing the Department of Homeland Security is about is infringing on anybody's constitutionally protected rights."
- Janet Napolitano
(Related: Rights, Security)
"We can't forget what happened on May 4th, 1970, when four students gave up their lives because they had the American constitutional right of peaceful protest. They gave up their lives. And to sing that song in that spot on that anniversary was very emotional for us."
- Graham Nash
(Related: American, Forget, May, Protest, Right, Song, Students)
"I certainly want campaign finance reform. I just wish this would do it in a way that would stand up to a constitutional challenge."
- Ben Nelson
(Related: Finance, Challenge, Reform, Want)
"Amending the U.S. Constitution, the document most sacred to those who love freedom and liberty, is a delicate endeavor and should be done only on the basis of the most clear and convincing evidence that a proposed amendment is necessary."
- Ben Nelson
(Related: Love, Constitution, Freedom, Liberty)
"No person who denies the existence of a supreme being shall hold any office under this Constitution."
- Michael Newdow
(Related: Being, Constitution, Existence, Office)
"It's one of the nice things about this nation that when the Constitution is violated, if it affects you, you can bring a suit."
- Michael Newdow
(Related: Constitution, Nation)
"Obviously, I'll keep fighting to uphold the Constitution."
- Michael Newdow
(Related: Constitution, Fighting)
"The Constitution says that government isn't supposed to be infusing religion into our society, and so I asked to have that upheld."
- Michael Newdow
(Related: Government, Religion, Society, Constitution)
"I believe in the Constitution. The Constitution says that government isn't supposed to be infusing religion into our society, and so I asked to have that upheld."
- Michael Newdow
(Related: Government, Religion, Society, Constitution)
"I believe I am strengthening the Constitution with my case."
- Michael Newdow
(Related: Constitution)
"A federal judge did as he was supposed to do and upheld the Constitution. We should be thankful that we have judiciary that will do that."
- Michael Newdow
(Related: Constitution, Will)
"The constitution ought to specifically state that every nation is left entirely independent and supreme in its internal affairs, such as regulating emigration and all other similar matters."
- George William Norris
(Related: Constitution, Nation, State)
"I opposed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. It should be repealed and I will vote for its repeal on the Senate floor. I will also oppose any proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gays and lesbians from marrying."
- Barack Obama
(Related: Marriage, Act, Constitution, Defense, Senate, Vote, Will)
"It matters enormously to a successful democratic society like ours that we have three branches of government, each with some independence and some control over the other two. That's set out in the Constitution."
- Sandra Day O'Connor
(Related: Society, Government, Successful, Control, Constitution, Independence)
"I'm a judge. It seemed to me that it was critical to try to take action to stem the criticism and help people understand that in the constitutional framework, it's terribly important not to have a system of retaliation against decisions people don't like."
- Sandra Day O'Connor
(Related: People, Action, Criticism, Decisions, Help)
"It is a measure of the framers' fear that a passing majority might find it expedient to compromise 4th Amendment values that these values were embodied in the Constitution itself."
- Sandra Day O'Connor
(Related: Fear, Values, Compromise, Constitution, Majority, Measure)
"The framers of the Constitution were so clear in the federalist papers and elsewhere that they felt an independent judiciary was critical to the success of the nation."
- Sandra Day O'Connor
(Related: Success, Constitution, Nation)
"After the end of the Second World War it was a categorical imperative for us to declare that we renounced war forever in a central article of the new Constitution."
- Kenzaburo Oe
(Related: War, Constitution, End, World, World war)
"Even though we now have the half-century-old new Constitution, there is a popular sentiment of support for the old one that lives on in reality in some quarters."
- Kenzaburo Oe
(Related: Constitution, Now, Old, Popular, Reality, Sentiment, Support)
"In Japan itself there have all along been attempts by some to obliterate the article about renunciation of war from the Constitution and for this purpose they have taken every opportunity to make use of pressures from abroad."
- Kenzaburo Oe
(Related: War, Opportunity, Purpose, Constitution, Renunciation)
"In an unconstitutional partnership with the state, the church can impose the most irresistible, if covert, controls conceivable."
- Madalyn Murray O'Hair
(Related: Church, Partnership, State)
"I cannot believe that the American people and the people they elected would use the Constitution to stifle any group's rights."
- Jean O'Leary
(Related: People, American, Constitution, Rights)
"I was appalled and shocked that Bush used the State of the Union to attack same-sex marriages and indicated that he would support a constitutional amendment."
- Jean O'Leary
(Related: State, Support)
"The fact that we're protected under that Constitution in exercising the right of free speech, it's a wonderful thing. You've got to come from somewhere else to realize how valuable it is."
- Pat Oliphant
(Related: Constitution, Fact, Free speech, Right)
"The very idea of marriage is basic to recognition as equals in our society; any status short of that is inferior, unjust, and unconstitutional."
- Ted Olson
(Related: Marriage, Idea, Society)
"The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly held that marriage is one of the most fundamental rights that we have as Americans under our Constitution."
- Ted Olson
(Related: Marriage, Americans, Constitution, Court, Rights, states, United)
"While I believe our Constitution allows for State and local governments to execute the power of eminent domain for those purposes that specifically serve the public good, condemning property solely to implement economic development plans is not serving the public good."
- Solomon Ortiz
(Related: Power, Development, Constitution, Property, Public, State)
"Congress and the White House are working out their scheme for pushing through a healthcare 'reform' bill that has more pages than the U.S. Constitution has words. I guarantee you that not a single member of the House or Senate has a complete understanding of that legislation any more than they understood all the implications of the USA PATRIOT Act back in 2001."
- Butch Otter
(Related: Act, Congress, Constitution, Healthcare, Legislation, Senate, Understanding, Words)
"In the due exercise of your official power, in strictest accordance with law and the Constitution, you can deprive the enemy of that which, above all else, has given, and still gives him, aid and comfort."
- Robert Dale Owen
(Related: Power, Comfort, Constitution, Enemy, Exercise, Law)
"We can constitutionally extirpate slavery at this time."
- Robert Dale Owen
(Related: Time, Slavery)
"People have a constitutional right to burn a Koran if they want to, but doing so is insensitive and an unnecessary provocation - much like building a mosque at Ground Zero."
- Sarah Palin
(Related: People, Mosque, Koran, Building, Right, Want)
"We know that this man has a proven record of being a 'strict constructionist.' Our President has given us his word that he will interpret the Constitution rather than make new laws from the bench."
- Rod Parsley
(Related: Being, Constitution, Laws, Man, President, Will, Word)
"I will always vote what I have promised, and always vote the Constitution, as well as I will not vote for one single penny that isn't paid for, because debt is the monster, debt is what's going to eat us up and that is why our economy is on the brink."
- Ron Paul
(Related: Constitution, Debt, Economy, Vote, Will)
"How did we win the election in the year 2000? We talked about a humble foreign policy: No nation-building; don't police the world. That's conservative, it's Republican, it's pro-American - it follows the founding fathers. And, besides, it follows the Constitution."
- Ron Paul
(Related: Conservative, Constitution, Fathers, Founding, Nation, Police, Republican, World)
"To me, to be a conservative means to conserve the good parts of America and to conserve our Constitution."
- Ron Paul
(Related: America, Conservative, Constitution)
"The moral and constitutional obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people."
- Ron Paul
(Related: People, Liberty, Washington, World)
"There is nothing wrong with describing Conservatism as protecting the Constitution, protecting all things that limit government. Government is the enemy of liberty. Government should be very restrained."
- Ron Paul
(Related: Government, Conservatism, Constitution, Enemy, Liberty, Nothing, Wrong)
"The United States government can indict you on something, and now you've got to prove your innocence. And that's not the Constitution of the United States."
- Leonard Peltier
(Related: Government, Constitution, Innocence, Now, states, United)
"The connections I draw between human nature and political systems in my new book, for example, were prefigured in the debates during the Enlightenment and during the framing of the American Constitution."
- Steven Pinker
(Related: Nature, American, Constitution, Example, Human nature)
"For good nurture and education implant good constitutions."
- Plato
(Related: Education)
"Minorities have a right to appeal to the Constitution as a shield against such oppression."
- James K. Polk
(Related: Constitution, Oppression, Right)
"One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights."
- James K. Polk
(Related: Constitution, Rights)
"Has President Bush exceeded his constitutional authority or acted illegally in authorizing wiretaps without a warrant? Benjamin Franklin would not have thought so."
- Pete du Pont
(Related: Thought, Authority, President)
"But just as they did in Philadelphia when they were writing the constitution, sooner or later, you've got to compromise. You've got to start making the compromises that arrive at a consensus and move the country forward."
- Colin Powell
(Related: Compromise, Constitution, Country, Writing)
"It is becoming more widely acknowledged that it is better to have a good constitution than not having a perfect one."
- Romano Prodi
(Related: Constitution)
"What I am for is justice for everyone, just like it says in the Constitution."
- Richard Pryor
(Related: Constitution, Justice)
"I believe realism is nothing but an analysis of reality. Film scripts have a synthetical constitution."
- Manuel Puig
(Related: Constitution, Film, Nothing, Realism, Reality)
"Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is, that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us."
- George Haven Putnam
(Related: Government, Purpose, Constitution, Will)
"We shouldn't have to be burdened with all the technicalities that come up from time to time with shrewd, smart lawyers interpreting what the laws or what the Constitution may or may not say."
- Dan Quayle
(Related: Time, Constitution, Laws, Lawyers, May)
"This constitution recognises the need for social dialogue involving labour and management; it involves trade unions in the decision-making process; it has a social vision founded on social dialogue."
- Jean-Pierre Raffarin
(Related: Decision, Management, Vision, Constitution, Trade)
"I think that the proposed constitution is one of the European legal documents with the strongest social dimension I have seen since I began following European issues."
- Jean-Pierre Raffarin
(Related: Legal, Constitution)
"With that in mind and in celebration of National Prayer Day, today I have proposed in the House of Representatives a Constitutional Amendment that would restore voluntary prayer in our Nation's schools."
- Nick Rahall
(Related: Day, Mind, Nation, Prayer, Schools, Today)
"I believe that the Framers of the Constitution made their intent clear when they wrote the First Amendment. I believe they wanted to keep the new government from endorsing one religion over another, not erase the public consciousness or common faith."
- Nick Rahall
(Related: Faith, Government, Religion, Consciousness, Constitution, First, Public)
"The fact that the church is convinced of not having the right to confer priestly ordination on women is now considered by some as irreconcilable with the European Constitution."
- Joseph Ratzinger
(Related: Women, Church, Constitution, Fact, Now, Right)
"The success of those doctrines would also subvert the Federal Constitution, change the character of the Federal Government, and destroy our rights in respect to slavery."
- John H. Reagan
(Related: Change, Success, Government, Character, Constitution, Rights, Respect, Slavery)
"The Constitution of the United States was made by white men, the citizens and representatives of twelve slaveholding and one non-slaveholding State; and it was made for white men."
- John H. Reagan
(Related: Men, Constitution, State, states, United)
"Congress seems to want to cure every ill known to man except unconstitutional government and high taxes."
- Charley Reese
(Related: Government, Congress, Cure, Man, Taxes, Want)
"It is always possible for the court to overreach its proper bounds and perhaps declare a lot of laws unconstitutional and frustrate the will of the majority in a way that it ought not be frustrated."
- William Rehnquist
(Related: Court, Laws, Majority, Will)
"If there was a way to discourage trash constitutionally, I would sure as heck take a hard look at it. I don't think there is. So I don't think there's a choice here."
- Ed Rendell
(Related: Choice)
"Although I may find the type of programming seen during the 2004 Super Bowl and the 2003 Golden Globe Awards disgusting and disturbing, we must always work hard to defend the cherished freedoms so clearly outlined in our Constitution, including a healthy and free press."
- Mike Rogers
(Related: Work, Awards, Constitution, May, Press, Programming)
"Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth."
- Will Rogers
(Related: Money, People, Earth, Giving, Learning, Prohibition, Race, Years)
"Why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as well as prohibition did, in five years Americans would be the smartest race of people on Earth."
- Will Rogers
(Related: People, Americans, Earth, Learning, Prohibition, Race, Years)
"Our constitution protects aliens, drunks and U.S. Senators."
- Will Rogers
(Related: Constitution, Senators)
"I rise in support of the separation of powers as established by our Founding Fathers in the Constitution. The Constitution clearly delegates the power to deal with criminal matters, like the use of drugs, to the States."
- Dana Rohrabacher
(Related: Power, Constitution, Drugs, Fathers, Founding, Separation, states, Support)
"Conservatives believe in providing Constitutional rights to our citizens, not to enemy combatants like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed."
- Mitt Romney
(Related: Enemy, Rights)
"The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
(Related: Government, Constitution, Rules, states, United)
"The growth of modern constitutional government compels for its successful practice the exercise of reason and considerate judgment by the individual citizens who constitute the electorate."
- Elihu Root
(Related: Government, Successful, Growth, Exercise, Judgment, Practice, Reason)
"Nothing is more important in the preservation of peace than to secure among the great mass of the people living under constitutional government a just conception of the rights which their nation has against others and of the duties their nation owes to others."
- Elihu Root
(Related: Government, Peace, People, Rights, Living, Nation, Nothing)
"The Constitution wanted artists to have control over their works because they knew it would create incentive to create more works. That is clearly still the goal."
- Hilary Rosen
(Related: Control, Goal, Artists, Constitution)
"I am in favor, heartily in favor, of our Constitution and Bill of Rights and I owe my allegiance to my country at all times."
- Julius Rosenberg
(Related: Constitution, Country, Rights)
""Empathy" is the latest code word for liberal activism, for treating the Constitution as malleable clay to be kneaded and molded in whatever form justices want. It represents an expansive view of the judiciary in which courts create policy that couldn't pass the legislative branch or, if it did, would generate voter backlash."
- Karl Rove
(Related: Policy, Activism, Constitution, Liberal, Want, Word)
"The issue is whether the ultimate civil authority of the United States can tolerate actions in contempt of constitutional lines of authority. Any lessening of civil power over military power must inevitably lead away from democracy."
- Harold Russell
(Related: Power, Actions, Authority, Contempt, Democracy, Military, states, United)
"Today, we stand as a united country and are much closer to the ideals set forth in our Constitution that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
- Jim Ryun
(Related: Happiness, Men, Life, Constitution, Country, Rights, Ideals, Liberty, Pursuit, Today, United)
"The current constitutional law places the president of the republic in an embarrassing situation."
- Jose Eduardo Dos Santos
(Related: Law, President)
"There is nothing new in the realization that the Constitution sometimes insulates the criminality of a few in order to protect the privacy of us all."
- Antonin Scalia
(Related: Constitution, Nothing, Order, Privacy)
"If you think aficionados of a living Constitution want to bring you flexibility, think again. You think the death penalty is a good idea? Persuade your fellow citizens to adopt it. You want a right to abortion? Persuade your fellow citizens and enact it. That's flexibility."
- Antonin Scalia
(Related: Death, Idea, Abortion, Constitution, Flexibility, Living, Right, Want)
"If we're picking people to draw out of their own conscience and experience a 'new' Constitution, we should not look principally for good lawyers. We should look to people who agree with us. When we are in that mode, you realize we have rendered the Constitution useless."
- Antonin Scalia
(Related: Experience, People, Conscience, Constitution, Lawyers)
"A law can be both economic folly and constitutional."
- Antonin Scalia
(Related: Folly, Law)
"If giving points to some students to achieve greater diversity is a quota system in violation of the Constitution, how can the awarding of points to the children of a less diverse alumni be upheld?"
- Adam Schiff
(Related: Children, Constitution, Diversity, Giving, Students)
"The justices have constitutionally protected obscenity in libraries, filth over cable television, and now unlimited internet pornography."
- Phyllis Schlafly
(Related: Internet, Libraries, Now, Pornography, Television)
"We are on the precipice of a crisis, a Constitutional crisis. The checks and balances, which have been at the core of this Republic, are about to be evaporated by the nuclear option. The checks and balances that say if you get 51% of the vote, you don't get your way 100% of the time. It is amazing, it's almost a temper tantrum."
- Charles Schumer
(Related: Time, Crisis, Temper, Vote)
"I have three degrees in history and only one in law, but since I came back to specialize in constitutional law where history is so essentially a part and an explanation of much that exists, the two disciplines blended very well."
- Frank Scott
(Related: History, Law)
"We can constitutionally extirpate slavery at this time. But if we fail to do this, then unless we intend hereafter to violate the Constitution, we shall have a fugitive slave law in operation whenever the war is over."
- Jay Alan Sekulow
(Related: War, Time, Constitution, Law, Slavery)
"You are the first President to whom the opportunity was ever offered constitutionally to inaugurate such a day. If you fail us now, you may be the last."
- Jay Alan Sekulow
(Related: Opportunity, Day, First, May, Now, President)
"It has always been a great wrong that these men and their families should be held in bondage. We of the North have hitherto acquiesced in it, lest, in the endeavor to redress it in violation of the Constitution, greater evils might ensue."
- Jay Alan Sekulow
(Related: Men, Constitution, Wrong)
"I think the court will determine that the Faith-Based Initiative that the White House has instituted in the last five years is constitutional, in the context of allowing for broad-based programs to include religious providers."
- Jay Alan Sekulow
(Related: Faith, Court, Religious, Will, Years)
"Simultaneously with the establishment of the Constitution, Virginia ceded to the United States her domain, which then extended to the Mississippi, and was even claimed to extend to the Pacific Ocean."
- William H. Seward
(Related: Constitution, Ocean, states, United)
"If slavery, limited as it yet is, now threatens to subvert the Constitution, how can we as wise and prudent statesmen, enlarge its boundaries and increase its influence, and thus increase already impending dangers?"
- William H. Seward
(Related: Constitution, Influence, Now, Slavery)
"I deem it established, then, that the Constitution does not recognize property in man, but leaves that question, as between the states, to the law of nature and of nations."
- William H. Seward
(Related: Nature, Constitution, Law, Man, Nations, Property, Question, states)
"But you answer, that the Constitution recognizes property in slaves. It would be sufficient, then, to reply, that this constitutional recognition must be void, because it is repugnant to the law of nature and of nations."
- William H. Seward
(Related: Nature, Constitution, Law, Nations, Property)
"But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes."
- William H. Seward
(Related: Authority, Constitution, Law)
"But the Constitution was made not only for southern and northern states, but for states neither northern nor southern, namely, the western states, their coming in being foreseen and provided for."
- William H. Seward
(Related: Being, Constitution, states)
"But I deny that the Constitution recognizes property in man."
- William H. Seward
(Related: Constitution, Man, Property)
"I submit, on the other hand, most respectfully, that the Constitution not merely does not affirm that principle, but, on the contrary, altogether excludes it."
- William H. Seward
(Related: Constitution)
"There is a higher law than the Constitution."
- William Seward
(Related: Constitution, Law)
"The merit of our Constitution was, not that it promotes democracy, but checks it."
- Horatio Seymour
(Related: Constitution, Democracy, Merit)
"The right wing always mobilizes around constitutional amendments: the right to bear arms, school prayer."
- Al Sharpton
(Related: Prayer, Right, School)
"We need an amendment that gives us the right to vote protected by the federal government and the Constitution."
- Al Sharpton
(Related: Government, Constitution, Right, Vote)
"If Charlton Heston can have a constitutional right carry a rifle, why can't grandma have a constitutional right to health care?"
- Al Sharpton
(Related: Health, Care, Right)
"I'm different. I have a different constitution, I have a different brain, I have a different heart. I got tiger blood, man. Dying's for fools, dying's for amateurs."
- Charlie Sheen
(Related: Heart, Blood, Constitution, Dying, Fools, Man)
"I have a different constitution. I have a different brain; I have a different heart; I got tiger blood, man."
- Charlie Sheen
(Related: Heart, Blood, Constitution, Man)
"We also intend to deal with the issue of incorporating basic human rights into our new constitution."
- Chen Shui-bian
(Related: Constitution, Rights, Human rights)
"Also in the new constitution, we want to lower the voting age from 20 years to 18 years and also gradually implement a voluntary military service in replacement of the current compulsory military service."
- Chen Shui-bian
(Related: Age, Constitution, Military, Service, Voting, Want, Years)
"It is the right of our people to organize to oppose any law and any part of the Constitution with which they are not in sympathy."
- Alfred E. Smith
(Related: Sympathy, People, Constitution, Law, Right)
"Segregation was a burden for many blacks, because the end of the civil war and the amendments added to the constitution elevated expectations beyond reality in some respects."
- Ed Smith
(Related: War, Burden, Constitution, End, Expectations, Reality)
"Our political and constitutional rights, so called, are but the natural and inherent rights of man, asserted, carried out, and secured by modes of human contrivance."
- Gerrit Smith
(Related: Rights, Man)
"I'm tired of being considered some kind of criminal or dangerous throwback for no other reason than that I value, exercise, and defend my rights under the first ten Amendments to the United States Constitution."
- L. Neil Smith
(Related: Being, Constitution, Exercise, First, Rights, Reason, states, United, Value)
"I propose a Constitutional Amendment providing that, if any public official, elected or appointed, at any level of government, is caught lying to any member of the public for any reason, the punishment shall be death by public hanging."
- L. Neil Smith
(Related: Death, Government, Lying, Public, Punishment, Reason)
"Collective states are constitutionally incapable of reliably producing anything but corpses."
- L. Neil Smith
(Related: states)
"The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, not freedom from religion."
- Lamar S. Smith
(Related: Religion, Constitution, Freedom)
"They will sustain the constitution and laws and institutions of the United States, and be the champions of liberty and of that constitution when its integrity shall be threatened."
- Lorenzo Snow
(Related: Constitution, Integrity, Laws, Liberty, states, United, Will)
"Even though Article IV of the Constitution says that treaties are the 'supreme law of the land,' in most instances they're not even law."
- Sonia Sotomayor
(Related: Constitution, Land, Law)
"As a matter of traditional and sound constitutional doctrine, an amendment to the Constitution should be the last resort when all other measures have proved inadequate."
- Arlen Specter
(Related: Constitution, Doctrine, Sound)
"I believe in an evolving Constitution. A flexible Constitution leaves room for us to consider not merely how the world once was, but how it ought to be."
- Eliot Spitzer
(Related: Constitution, World)
"But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist."
- Lysander Spooner
(Related: Government, Constitution)
"Every American, regardless of their background, has the right to live free of unwarranted government intrusion. Repealing the worst provisions of the Patriot Act will reign in this gross abuse of power and restore to everyone our basic Constitutional rights."
- Pete Stark
(Related: Government, Power, Abuse, Act, American, Rights, Will)
"It must always be remembered that what the Constitution forbids is not all searches and seizures, but unreasonable searches and seizures."
- Potter Stewart
(Related: Constitution)
"The constitutions of Maryland and New York are founded in higher wisdom."
- Ezra Stiles
(Related: Wisdom)
"In this film George presents issues that are important, essential and vital, whoever you are, about constitutional rights and the bedrock of a democracy. I am drawn to those kinds of stories because they inspire me - they are responsible to a populace and responsible to man."
- David Strathairn
(Related: Democracy, Film, Rights, Man)
"As a result of the World War, this old Germany collapsed. It collapsed in its constitution, in its social order, in its economic structure. Its thinking and feeling changed."
- Gustav Stresemann
(Related: War, Constitution, Feeling, Germany, Old, Order, Result, Thinking, World, World war)
"Defining marriage is a power that should be left to the states. Moreover, no state should be forced to recognize a marriage that is not within its own laws, Constitution, and legal precedents."
- John Sununu
(Related: Legal, Marriage, Power, Constitution, Laws, Precedents, State, states)
"If the provisions of the constitution be not upheld when they pinch as well as when they comfort, they may as well be abandoned."
- George Sutherland
(Related: Comfort, Constitution, May)
"But I think the possibility of a black and white society feeding each other's expertises, living harmoniously, will probably go along in fits and starts now but at least it has a great constitution now to back it up."
- Janet Suzman
(Related: Society, Possibility, Constitution, Living, Now, Will)
"I'm knocking our pitiful, pathetic lawmakers. And I thank God that President Bush has stated, we need a Constitutional amendment that states that marriage is between a man and a woman."
- Jimmy Swaggart
(Related: Marriage, God, Man, President, states, Woman)
"The pursuit of happiness is in our Constitution. We're all entitled to have the best we can."
- Loretta Swit
(Related: Happiness, Constitution, Pursuit)
"Laws and constitutions ought to be weighed... to constitute that which is most conducing to the establishment of justice and liberty."
- Algernon Sydney
(Related: Justice, Laws, Liberty)
"Our plan is to struggle against terrorism and have security for the country and help draft a democratic constitution as soon as possible."
- Jalal Talabani
(Related: Constitution, Country, Draft, Help, Security, Struggle, Terrorism)
"No power on earth is greater than a mind and soul reawakened. Our Constitution begins 'we the people', not 'us the government'."
- Cal Thomas
(Related: Power, Soul, Government, People, Constitution, Earth, Mind)
"Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?"
- Henry David Thoreau
(Related: Life, Nature)
"As for doing good; that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution."
- Henry David Thoreau
(Related: Constitution, May)
"In historical and constitutional terms, the recent political status vote in Puerto Rico was a necessary but obviously not decisive step on the road of self-determination leading to full self-government."
- Dick Thornburgh
(Related: Leading, Road, Self, Vote)
"However, the sovereignty of the states is constitutionally defined and recognized, while the powers of the local government in Puerto Rico are defined by, and subject to alteration under, federal statutory law."
- Dick Thornburgh
(Related: Government, Law, states)
"Apparently tired of waiting for clear direction from Congress, the people of Puerto Rico have used the tools provided by their own local constitution to schedule a vote for Dec. 13 on the status of the island."
- Dick Thornburgh
(Related: People, Congress, Constitution, Direction, Tools, Vote, Waiting)
"As the highest ranking American official in the United Nations organization, I came to understand thoroughly that the national constitutional processes of the member states define the status of territories under their sovereignty."
- Dick Thornburgh
(Related: American, Nations, states, United)
"Internal self-government under a local constitution was authorized by Congress and approved by the residents in 1952, but federal law is supreme in Puerto Rico and residents do not have voting representation in the Congress."
- Dick Thornburgh
(Related: Congress, Constitution, Law, Self, Voting)
"The capacity of the commonwealth government created under the local constitution to exercise governmental powers in local affairs is like that of local government in the states of the union in regard to non-federal affairs at the local level."
- Dick Thornburgh
(Related: Government, Constitution, Exercise, states)
"Specifically, the reservation of sovereignty to the people of the states in matters not governed by federal law is constitutionally defined and permanently enshrined in the 10th Amendment."
- Dick Thornburgh
(Related: People, Law, states)
"As Members of Congress, we swear an oath to uphold the United States Constitution. It means something to be an American because we believe in our country, we believe in our people, and we believe in our constitution."
- Todd Tiahrt
(Related: People, American, Congress, Constitution, Country, states, United)
"Well, today, we are in the struggle brought on to us by the terrorists of Islam. It is a war that we did not choose. It was a war that was declared against us as Americans, against our people, against our Constitution."
- Todd Tiahrt
(Related: War, People, Islam, Americans, Constitution, Struggle, Today)
"I do not have, nor do I believe I have seen, a vision capacious and convincing enough to propound as an organizing principle for the next phase in the law of our Constitution."
- Laurence Tribe
(Related: Vision, Constitution, Law)
"The question about those aromatic advertisements that perfume companies are having stitched into magazines these days is this: under the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment, is smelling up the place a constitutionally protected form of expression?"
- Calvin Trillin
(Related: Expression, First, Question)
"Each state, so that it does not abridge the great fundamental rights belonging, under the Constitution, to all citizens, may grant or withhold such civil rights as it pleases; all that is required is that, in this respect, its laws shall be impartial."
- Lyman Trumbull
(Related: Civil rights, Constitution, Laws, May, Respect, State)
"A privilege may not be a right, but, under the constitution of the country, I do not gather that any broad distinction is drawn between the rights and the privileges that were enjoyed and that were taken away."
- Charles Tupper
(Related: Constitution, Country, Rights, May, Privilege)
"When the Constitution gave us the right to bear arms, it also made us responsible for using them properly. It's not fair of us as citizens to lean more heavily on one side of that equation than on the other."
- Jesse Ventura
(Related: Constitution, Right)
"The Constitution guarantees us our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That's all. It doesn't guarantee our rights to charity."
- Jesse Ventura
(Related: Happiness, Life, Charity, Constitution, Rights, Liberty, Pursuit)
"There is a vast difference - a constitutional difference-between restrictions imposed by the state which prohibit the intellectual commingling of students, and the refusal of individuals to commingle where the state presents no such bar."
- Frederick M. Vinson
(Related: Difference, State, Students)
"We are witnessing a slow, steady takeover of our true freedoms. We are becoming a socialist nation, and whoever can't see this is probably hoping it isn't true. If we permit Mr. Obama to take over all our industries, if we permit him to raise our taxes to support unconstitutional causes, then we will be in default. This great America will become a paralyzed nation."
- Jon Voight
(Related: America, Causes, Nation, Support, Taxes, Will)
"The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Civil War-when I really think about them they all seem about as likely as the parting of the Red Sea."
- Sarah Vowell
(Related: War, Constitution, Independence, Parting, Sea)
"Allowing Texas to display the Ten Commandments on State property but disallowing Kentucky courthouses from doing the same is a poor and flawed interpretation of the U.S. Constitution."
- Ginny B. Waite
(Related: Constitution, Kentucky, Poor, Property, State)
"And therefore, for the sake of my mater, without any regard for my own, I hope all those that have a due regard for our constitution and for the rights and prerogatives of the crown, without which our constitution can not be preserved, will be against this motion."
- Robert Walpole
(Related: Hope, Constitution, Rights, Will)
"I prefer a man who will burn the flag and then wrap himself in the Constitution to a man who will burn the Constitution and then wrap himself in the flag."
- Craig Washington
(Related: Constitution, Man, Will)
"The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure."
- George Washington
(Related: Power, War, Congress, Constitution, Importance, Measure)
"The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government."
- George Washington
(Related: Government, People, Right)
"The Constitution is the guide which I never will abandon."
- George Washington
(Related: Constitution, Will)
"Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples' liberty's teeth."
- George Washington
(Related: Constitution, Importance, Liberty)
"One country, one constitution, one destiny."
- Daniel Webster
(Related: Constitution, Country, Destiny)
"Let it be borne on the flag under which we rally in every exigency, that we have one country, one constitution, one destiny."
- Daniel Webster
(Related: Constitution, Country, Destiny)
"Let this circumstance of our constitution therefore be directed to this noble purpose, and then all the objections urged against it by jealous tyranny and affrighted superstition will vanish."
- Adam Weishaupt
(Related: Purpose, Circumstance, Constitution, Superstition, Tyranny, Will)
"In the Constitution of the American Republic there was a deliberate and very extensive and emphatic division of governmental power for the very purpose of preventing unbridled majority rule."
- Robert Welch
(Related: Power, Purpose, American, Constitution, Majority)
"In our Constitution governmental power is divided among three separate branches of the national government, three separate branches of State governments, and the peoples of the several States."
- Robert Welch
(Related: Power, Government, Constitution, State, states)
"When dealing with illegal immigration, the answer is simple; enforce Constitutional mandates, and you will protect Floridians and the American people."
- Allen West
(Related: People, American, Will)
"This liberal progressive agenda... is the antithesis of who we are as a constitutional republic."
- Allen West
(Related: Liberal)
"I think that this liberal progressive agenda is not the thing that the American people want and it's antithesis to who we are as a constitutional republic."
- Allen West
(Related: People, American, Liberal, Want)
"I think that if we get back to some basic fundamental principles, we can make sure that we resolve the issues. And I think that that's what the Tea Party was all about. It's getting back to a constitutional conservative government. And that is limited, but it's also effective and efficient. I think that that's what we'll be able to do."
- Allen West
(Related: Government, Conservative, Party, Principles, Tea)
"The greatest threat to the constitutional right to vote is voter fraud."
- Lynn Westmoreland
(Related: Fraud, Right, Vote)
"Absent scandal, a federal judge can serve for decades on the bench, underscoring the importance of appointing judges who have a proper understanding of their constitutional role."
- Paul Weyrich
(Related: Importance, Judges, Scandal, Understanding)
"Fundamental ideas are not a consequence of experience, but a result of the particular constitution and activity of the mind, which is independent of all experience in its origin, though constantly combined with experience in its exercise."
- William Whewell
(Related: Experience, Ideas, Constitution, Exercise, Mind, Result)
"The Court is most vulnerable and comes nearest to illegitimacy when it deals with judge-made constitutional law having little or no cognizable roots in the language or design of the Constitution."
- Byron White
(Related: Design, Constitution, Court, Deals, Language, Law)
"Civil libertarians have raised concerns that some of the Patriot Act's provisions infringe on Constitutional rights. Those concerns are not supported by the facts."
- Roger Wicker
(Related: Act, Facts, Rights)
"Our nation is being led astray by ungodly judges, mayors and governors, who are given to change, defying the Constitution and substituting their own wicked agendas."
- David Wilkerson
(Related: Change, Being, Constitution, Judges, Nation)
"The constitution does not provide for first and second class citizens."
- Wendell Willkie
(Related: Class, Constitution, First)
"The First Amendment does not guarantee the press a constitutional right of special access to information not available to the general public, nor does it cloak the inmate with special rights of freedom of speech."
- Pete Wilson
(Related: First, Freedom, Rights, Information, Press, Public, Speech)
"It is time... to end the long-standing and unproductive methodological debate over 'originalism' versus 'dynamism' or 'evolution' and focus instead on how, as a substantive matter, we should interpret the Constitution in the twenty-first century, and what it has to say on questions unimaginable to our eighteenth-century Framers."
- Diane Wood
(Related: Time, Constitution, Debate, End, Focus, Questions)
"Neither James Madison, for whom this lecture is named, nor any of the other Framers of the Constitution, were oblivious, careless, or otherwise unaware of the words they chose for the document and its Bill of Rights."
- Diane Wood
(Related: Constitution, Rights, Words)
"We got touring with the Stones, and people were trying to keep up with Keith. He's like a human machine with a constitution of iron, and they all thought they could do the same."
- Ron Wood
(Related: Thought, People, Constitution, Machine, Trying)
"I am a free lover. I have an inalienable, constitutional and natural right to love whom I may, to love as long or short a period as I can; to change that love every day if I please."
- Victoria Woodhull
(Related: Change, Love, Day, May, Right)
"I don't see any justification for the federal government owning land, other than the Statue of Liberty and maybe a few parks, maybe a few refuges. But to just own land to do nothing with it I think is a disservice to the Constitution."
- Don Young
(Related: Government, Constitution, Justification, Land, Liberty, Nothing)
"They have accorded me my constitutional rights, and that is to their credit because the media hate campaign against me has been so intense and so vicious that it's a miracle that the police have taken such a professional approach."
- Ernst Zundel
(Related: Credit, Rights, Hate, Media, Police)