Popular quotes about Amendment! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 10
Every time I criticize what I consider to be excesses or faults in the news business, I am accused of repression; and the leaders of the various media professional groups wave the First Amendment as they denounce me. That happens to be my amendment too. It guarantees my free speech as much as it does their freedom of the press.
Spiro T. AgnewThe First Amendment is crucial. Of course it is. So are all the others. And the Second Amendment is the one that guarantees that people can bear arms to protect themselves.
Charlton HestonFor the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected.
Potter StewartThe First Amendment was designed to allow for disruption of business as usual. It is not a quiet and subdued amendment or right.
Naomi WolfI prefer an income tax, but the truth is I am afraid of the discussion which will follow and the criticism which will ensue if there is an other division in the Supreme Court on the subject of the income tax. Nothing has injured the prestige of the Supreme Court more than that last decision, and I think that many of the most violent advocates of the income tax will be glad of the substitution in their hearts for the same reasons. I am going to push the Constitutional amendment, which will admit an income tax without questions, but I am afraid of it without such an amendment.
William Howard TaftThe Scalia seat is defense. We're not going to get any better than Justice Scalia. The best we can do is preserve constitutional victories like upholding the Second Amendment, like protecting religious liberty. But we're not going to get any better.
Ted CruzI have come to the conclusion that the 22nd Amendment [limiting the presidency to two terms] was a mistake. Shouldn't the people have the right to vote for someone as many times as they want to vote for him?
Ronald ReaganThere's nothing in the First Amendment that even remotely talks about spending money for political contests, and to say that an individual can spend as much of his or her own money as he or she wants constitutionally without any limitation, I think is just absurd.
Arlen SpecterWe can have reasonable, thoughtful gun control measure that I think respect the Second Amendment and people's traditions.
Barack ObamaI believe in the American tradition of separation of church and state which is expressed in the First Amendment to the Constitution. By my office - and by personal conviction - I am sworn to uphold that tradition.
Lyndon B. JohnsonOne who comes to the Court must come to adore, not to protest. That's the new gloss on the First Amendment.
William O. DouglasI wish the constitution, which is offered, had been made more perfect; but I sincerely believe it is the best that could be obtained at this time. And, as a constitutional door is opened for amendment hereafter, the adoption of it, under the present circumstances of the Union, is in my opinion desirable.
George WashingtonWe have a First Amendment for good reasons. We need a free press because without an educated electorate we cannot have a functioning democracy.
Jill SteinI support the Second Amendment. I lived in Arkansas for 18 wonderful years. I represented upstate New York. I understand and respect the tradition of gun ownership. It goes back to the founding of our country.
Hillary ClintonAt the heart of the First Amendment is the recognition of the fundamental importance of the free flow of ideas and opinions on matters of public interest and concern. The freedom to speak one's mind is not only an aspect of individual liberty - and thus a good unto itself - but also is essential to the common quest for truth and the vitality of society as a whole. We have therefore been particularly vigilant to ensure that individual expressions of ideas remain free from governmentally imposed sanctions.
William RehnquistThree conditions are necessary for Penance: contrition, which is sorrow for sin, together with a purpose of amendment; confession of sins without any omission; and satisfaction by means of good works.
Thomas AquinasThe first amendment ensures not that speech will be fair, but that it will be free. It cannot be both.
David MametThe 22nd Amendment should probably be modified to say two consecutive terms instead of two terms for a lifetime.
William J. ClintonCongress decides who becomes a citizen and how. To automatically say the 14th Amendment grants birthright citizenship, no, we can't change that. Amending the Constitution, not possible, takes too long. We gotta find another way of dealing with this. No, we don't, because it's not there. You don't have to amend the Constitution.
Rush LimbaughThere are many prices we pay for freedoms secured by the First Amendment; the risk of undue influence is one of them, confirming what we have long known: Freedom is hazardous, but some restraints are worse.
Warren E. BurgerThe First Amendment does not extend to corporations. It's a U.S. government thing. Companies can shut speech down all they want. But the thing is this is destructive. This is discriminatory. And what they're telling themselves is they're making a much more peaceful environment. "We are creating a much more conducive and productive and peaceful environment," when they're not. They're suppressing opinion. They are inflicting their own world view and demanding that it be agreed with and acceded to. And if it's not, you get fired.
Rush LimbaughDonald Trump and the First Amendment - it's not a beautiful match. It's not a match made in heaven, you know, between the free speech rights that he has not defended and the freedom of the press which he has not defended. It's problematic.
Megyn KellyIt's hard for me to believe that just my words on the page are enough. I ought to be out physically keeping abortion safe and legal, restoring the Fourth Amendment, getting clean water back into Kentucky since the Bush Administration has allowed strip miners to fill it all up with slag. The list is endless. Bring it down. Make it small. Make it one thing that you can do. It's very hard for me to remember that.
Sara ParetskyThe Second Amendment has a preamble about the need for a militia. Because there is a need for a militia to be at the ready, therefore the right to keep and bear arms must be secured.
Ruth Bader GinsburgThe prima facie evidence provision in this case ignores all of the contextual factors that are necessary to decide whether a particular cross burning is intended to intimidate. The First Amendment does not permit such a shortcut.
Sandra Day O'ConnorWhatever one's religion in his private life may be, for the officeholder, nothing takes precedence over his oath to uphold the Constitution and all its parts - including the First Amendment and the strict separation of church and state.
John F. KennedyThe courts are using the First Amendment to attack religion, when they should be using it to protect religion.
Ernest IstookAfter reading hundreds of e-mails, I have made MY decision. By pulling my opening Oct 3rd, You (ESPN) stepped on the Toes of The First Amendment Freedom of Speech, so therefore Me, My Song, and All My Rowdy Friends are OUT OF HERE. It's been a great run.
Hank Williams, Jr.If you want a candidate to defend life and marriage and religious liberty and the Second Amendment and to appoint strong constitutionalists to the court, I'm the only candidate with that record. That's why conservatives are uniting behind our campaign. And if they want to continue with the attacks, that's their prerogative.
Ted CruzThe 14th Amendment is very questionable as to whether or not somebody can come over, have a baby and immediately that baby is a citizen.
Donald TrumpI'll end discriminatory laws like the Hyde Amendment that make it all but impossible for low-income women - disproportionately, women of color - to exercise their rights.
Hillary ClintonMarriage is not defined in the federal Constitution at all; it's a matter for the states. And applying the Fourteenth Amendment to the equality of men and women and their relationship in marriage is totally different than redefining marriage. Here is the overreach of the judiciary. This, if allowed to stand without any congressional approval, without any kind of enabling legislation, is what Jefferson warned us about. That's judicial tyranny.
Mike HuckabeeWhen you have your staff taking the Fifth Amendment, taking the Fifth so they're not prosecuted, when you have the man that set up the illegal server taking the Fifth, I think it's disgraceful. And believe me, this country thinks it's - really thinks it's disgraceful, also.
Donald TrumpThe Democrats in the Senate adopted a resolution, an amendment, saying that there should be no Guantanamo detainees brought into this country. So, more and more, we're finding the American people on one side, the ACLU and the troglodytes from the New York Times on the other, where they belong.
Peter KingIf the Tenth Amendment were still taken seriously, most of the federal government's present activities would not exist. That's why no one in Washington ever mentions it.
Thomas WoodsAs a young child, it became crystal clear to me that there were certain rights and privileges that other people had that my mother, my father, my grandparents, my great grandparents didn't have - that it was an ongoing struggle to realize the dream of the 14th and 15th Amendment.
John LewisWe seek a constitutional amendment to permit voluntary school prayer. God should never have been expelled from America's classrooms in the first place.
Ronald ReaganTrump was so different - in a bad way - that I thought the best thing I could do was to resist him. And that's because he was attacking the institutions of our democracy, from the First Amendment and the free press to the judiciary. He was stifling internal dissent, and then he was making false and misleading statements routinely. And to me, that's what takes us down the road to authoritarianism and that's why I decided to start resisting him.
Ted LieuThe Eighth Amendment to the Constitution protects citizens against cruel and unusual punishment. And there is a growing body of legal precedent that shows that transgender people who are incarcerated should be provided with these medically necessary procedures. In cases where they're not, it is considered a violation of those rights.
Allyson RobinsonThe Fourth Amendment is on life support and the chief agent of that is the National Security Agency.
Nat HentoffAs a strong supporter of our 2nd Amendment rights, I believe tougher enforcement of our nation's existing gun laws must be done before any more laws are enacted and put on the books.
Jeff MillerMy view is that we have the Second Amendment rights to bear arms, and in this country my view is that we should not add new legistlation. I do not believe in new laws restricting gun ownership and gun use.
Mitt RomneyI would bet there is no place in the United States where the First Amendment would survive intact.
Nat HentoffSome men look at Constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them, like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in Government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead.
Thomas JeffersonWhile the machinery of law enforcement and indeed the nature of crime itself have changed dramatically since the Fourth Amendment became part of the Nation's fundamental law in 1791, what the Framers understood then remains true today - that the task of combating crime and convicting the guilty will in every era seem of such critical and pressing concern that we may be lured by the temptations of expediency into forsaking our commitment to protecting individual liberty and privacy.
William J. Brennan