Popular quotes about Amendment! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 15
The left looks at the Constitution and sees things that aren't there and then they find 'em. They look at things that are there and claim they're not there. Like the Second Amendment, nah, nah, it's not there, they really didn't intend that. No, no. Abortion. You can't find it, yeah, there it is, plain as day, see, it's right there in the 14th Amendment, the Tenth Amendment, the Ninth Amendment, the Fifth - no, it's not.
Rush LimbaughThe men who wrote the First Amendment religion clause did not view paid legislative chaplains and opening prayers as a violation of that amendment... the practice of opening sessions with prayer has continued without interruption ever since that early session of Congress. It can hardly be thought that in the same week the members of the first Congress voted to appoint and pay a chaplain for each House and also voted to approve the draft of the First Amendment... (that) they intended to forbid what they had just declared acceptable.
Warren E. BurgerThe First Amendment is really at the very core of political speech, and political speech is at the core of the First Amendment. So, we want to be very careful to make sure that candidates for office are free to express their views so that people will make an informed choice. We don't want them holding back, and sort of concealing their views and then disclosing them afterwards.
Alex KozinskiThe time has come in our society when I see great wisdom and purpose in a United States Constitutional amendment declaring that marriage is between a man and a woman. There is nothing in that proposed amendment that requires a criminal prosecution or that directs the attorneys general to go out and round people up, but it declares a principle and it also creates a defensive barrier against those who would alter that traditional definition of marriage.
Dallin H. OaksI was lecturing at the Columbia Journalism School of Education. I asked them about what was happening to the Fourth Amendment. I said, "By the way, do you know what is in the Fourth Amendment?" One student responded, "Is that the right to bear arms?" It's hard to believe these are bright students.
Nat HentoffEvery public elementary school ought to welcome Good News Clubs. Parents appreciate them; children love them; and the First Amendment protects them. The First Amendment requires that similar groups be provided with equal treatment. Religious speech is not a disability. It is our preeminent freedom.
Mathew StaverThe First Amendment was designed to allow for disruption of business as usual. It is not a quiet and subdued amendment or right.
Naomi WolfNo one understands that the First Amendment is only important if you are going to offend somebody. If you're not going to offend somebody, you don't need protection of the First Amendment.
Larry FlyntThe Original Sin which brought us to the brink of bankruptcy and dictatorship was the Federal Income Tax Amendment and its illegitimate child, Federal Aid.
Tom AndersonThe 14th Amendment was passed after the Civil War to apply to former slaves to ensure that they are treated like all other citizens. It never did have anything to do with gay marriage. It was never intended to have anything to do with gay marriage or animal marriage or any other kind of social contract. It was specific to slavery, and after the Civli War.
Rush LimbaughI 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 ReaganI didnt know that President Bush would endorse a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
Mary CheneyAll human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse.
Benjamin FranklinIs Donald Trump a serious candidate? The reason I ask this is, if you're going to close the Internet, realize, America, what that entails. That entails getting rid of the First amendment, ok? It's no small feat.
Rand PaulA well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. - Second Amendment to the Constitution An armed society is a polite society.
Robert A. HeinleinIn 70s America, protest used to be very effective, but in subsequent decades municipalities have sneakily created a web of "overpermiticisation" - requirements that were designed to stifle freedom of assembly and the right to petition government for redress of grievances, both of which are part of our first amendment.
Naomi WolfAnybody who pretends that how you read the 10th and 11th Amendment doesn't have a fundamental impact on the things we care about is kidding themselves. They're either uninformed or they're kidding themselves.
Joe Biden[I watch] all that stuff - Game of Thrones and all the other series. How about House of Cards? As for Boardwalk Empire - that's another period of government overreach, but at least they use the amendment process! In real life, the executive branch, by violating the Constitution, is using statutes in place of constitutional amendments to diminish our liberty.
Edward SnowdenI remember when TV networks believed in the First Amendment. It is a messed up situation when Miley Cyrus gets a laugh, and Phil Robertson gets suspended.
Bobby JindalHistorically, the new government had no money to pay for an army, so they relied on the state militias. And the states required men to have certain weapons and they specified in the law what weapons these people had to keep in their home so that when they were called to do service as militiamen, they would have them. That was the entire purpose of the Second Amendment.
Ruth Bader GinsburgIf the First Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his house, what books he may read or what films he may watch.
Thurgood MarshallThe 22nd Amendment should probably be modified to say two consecutive terms instead of two terms for a lifetime.
William J. ClintonAnd it never, ever was interpreted that the Second Amendment meant individual's right to bear arms
Rosie O'DonnellOur 1 million members across the country will be watching closely to see if the video game industry hides behind a First Amendment veil in order to exploit children for the sake of corporate profit.
Connie SelleccaFor the Second Amendment to do its job, the other side must become much better informed. I watched an action-adventure program last night that asserted that the famous AK-47 - the original peoples' rifle (and Authority's greatest mistake) - is rare in this country, and that the only ones here were originally smuggled in from the Middle East, or possibly from South America. The idiots who wrote this mess seemed unaware that after legal imports - mostly from China - were illegally cut off by executive order, they began to be manufactured here.
L. Neil SmithThe First Amendment gives all of us - it gives it to me, it gives it to you, it gives all Americans - the right to speak our minds freely. It gives you the right and me the right to criticize fake news, and criticize it strongly.
Donald TrumpThe 16th Amendment corroded the American concept of natural rights; ultimately reduced the American citizen to a status of subject, so much so that he is not aware of it; enhanced Executive power to the point of reducing Congress to innocuity; and enabled the central government to bribe the states, once independent units, into subservience. No kingship in the history of the world ever exercised more power than our Presidency, or had more of the people's wealth at its disposal.
Frank ChodorovThere's, under Obama, an epidemic has developed of abusing national security laws to crack down on legitimate use of the First Amendment.
Julian AssangeWhatever 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 classic example I've used - I'm sure you've heard me say it before - was Mark Begich in Alaska who was here for a full six years and never had a roll call vote on an amendment on the floor of the Senate, which Dan Sullivan tells me he used on virtually a daily basis. So the notion that protecting all of your members from votes is a good idea politically, I think, has been pretty much disproved by the recent [Barack Obama] election.
Mitch McConnellI think basic disease care access and basic access to health care is a human right. If we need a constitutional amendment to put it in the Bill of Rights, then that's what we ought to do. Nobody with a conscience would leave the victim of a shark attack to bleed while we figure out whether or not they could pay for care. That tells us that at some level, health care access is a basic human right. Our system should be aligned so that our policies match our morality. Then within that system where everybody has access, we need to incentivize prevention, both for the patient and the provider.
David KatzWikileaks has - we specialize in bringing the First Amendment to the world, and we were always very surprised one of our biggest battles would be trying to bring it to the United States under an Obama administration.
Julian AssangeFree Speech in the College Community is a very timely book written by a dedicated scholar of the First Amendment. Challenging and readable it should be studied by all academicians, students, legislators and lawyers.
Nancy KassebaumIf you have an internet service provider that's capable of slowing down other sites, or putting other sites out of business, or favoring their own friends and affiliates and customers who can pay for fast lanes, that's a horrible infringement on free speech. It's censorship by media monopolies. It's tragic: here we have a technology, the internet, that's capable really of being the town square of democracy, paved with broadband bricks, and we are letting it be taken over by a few gatekeepers. This is a first amendment issue; it's free speech versus corporate censorship.
Michael CoppsThe 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 TrumpThe right really dominates radio, and it's amazing how much energy the right spends telling us that the press is slanted to the left when it really isn't. They want to shut other people up. They really don't understand the First Amendment.
Roger EbertThe basis of the First Amendment is the hypothesis that speech can rebut speech, propaganda will answer propaganda, free debate of ideas will result in the wisest governmental policies.
Fred M. VinsonIf you insist on asking me why I feel the way I do, I plan to take the Fifth Amendment.
Mason CooleyIt's part of the Constitution. People have the right to bear arms. Then the restrictions of it have to be reasonable and sensible. You can't just remove that right. You've got to regulate, consistent with the Second Amendment.
Rudy GiulianiI have a range of scenarios. One of them is a chaos, that what could happen is Congress does step up a little bit and the administration is paralyzed. And we go through all kinds of constitutional crises, impeachment or the 25th Amendment removal process. Another frightening scenario is Donald Trump is steering his way to a series of international confrontations at the same time as he's appeasing Russia.
David FrumSome well-meaning Christians tremble for their salvation, because they have never gone through that valley of tears and of sorrow, which they have been taught to consider as an ordeal that must be passed through before they can arrive at regeneration. To satisfy such minds, it may be observed, that the slightest sorrow for sin is sufficient, if it produce amendment, and that the greatest is insufficient, if it do not.
Charles Caleb ColtonAlcoholism, the opium habit and tobaccoism are a trio of poison habits which have been weighty handicaps to human progress during the last three centuries. In the United States, the subtle spell of opium has been broken by restrictive legislation; the grip of the rum demon has been loosened by the Prohibition Amendment to the Constitution, but the tobacco habit still maintains its strangle-hold and more than one hundred million victims of tobaccoism daily burn incense to the smoke god.
John Harvey KelloggAsked random questions about the First Amendment and how they would like to have it applied, if you believe in polls at all, the average American wants no part of it. But if you ask, 'What if we threw the Constitution away tomorrow?' the answer is 'No, that would be bad!' But living under the Constitution is another story altogether.
Frank ZappaThe takings clause of the Fifth Amendment is for conservatives what the equal protection clause of the 14th is for liberals.
Michael Kinsley