Popular quotes about Constitution! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 36
The Constitution is constant. There's not one elected official who has the power to change it. There is a way to amend the Constitution, and the Constitution spells out the procedures that must be taken to change it. Presidents cannot. Now, I know this is gonna shock many of you in the low-information community.
Rush LimbaughProgressivism is the cancer in America, and it is eating our Constitution. It was designed to eat the Constitution, to progress past the Constitution.
Glenn BeckAre we reading the Constitution and pondering it? Are we aware of its principles? Are we abiding by these principles and teaching them to others? Could we defend the Constitution? Can we recognize when a law is constitutionally unsound? Do we know what the prophets have said about the Constitution and the threats to it?
Ezra Taft BensonIt [the Constitution] didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted, and the Warren court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can't do to you, it says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn't shifted.
Barack ObamaThe 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. GreeneThe political disfunction that has brought about the shutdown and now threatens default, isn't so much gridlock. It is exposing the fatal flaw in our Constitution and highly distinct system of government. In other words, it's the Constitution's fault. Something truly catastrophic was bound to happen sooner or later.
Chris HayesA constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state, especially of the highest of all. The government is everywhere sovereign in the state, and the constitution is in fact the government.
AristotleThe principle of allegiance to the Constitution is basic to our freedom....when you see government invading any of these realms of freedom which we have under our Constitution, you will know that they are putting shackles on your liberty, and that tyranny is creeping upon you, ...no matter what the reason and excuse therefore may be.
J. Reuben ClarkConstitution is for the people, people are not for the constitution. Change it for the betterment of the common man.
Arvind KejriwalThe benefits of the constitution and laws are alike for all; and the great Elohim has given me the privilege of having the benefits of the constitution and the writ of habeas corpus.
Joseph Smith, Jr.America's founders were clear that the Constitution established a federal government of few and defined powers. It cannot regulate any activity it chooses, but they only regulate in those areas which the Constitution grants it power to regulate.
Orrin HatchWhy not admit that the words separation and church do not even appear in the US Constitution, he added. Instead, they do appear in Article 52 of the Constitution of the Soviet Union.
Tim LaHayeThe Constitution limits the role of government. The Constitution enumerates the freedoms of the people and enforces those freedoms against government, making sure government cannot encroach.
Rush LimbaughThese economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for.
Franklin D. RooseveltI would not look to the United States Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012.
Ruth Bader GinsburgThe provision of the Constitution giving the war making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons: Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and they resolved to so frame the constitution that no man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us.
Abraham LincolnAs the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial departments of the United States are co-ordinate, and each equally bound to support the Constitution, it follows that each must in the exercise of its functions be guided by the text of the Constitution according to its own interpretation of it.
James MadisonWhat the framers of the Constitution tried to achieve when they wrote that Constitution back in the 1700s was an independent federal judiciary. They wanted federal judges to be appointed by the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate, and to serve for good behavior.
Sandra Day O'ConnorAll laws that are proper and correct, and all obligations entered into which are not violative of the constitution should be kept inviolate. But if they are violative of the constitution, then the compact between the rulers and the ruled is broken and the obligation ceases to be binding.
John TaylorI am a constitutionalist. I believe in the constitution. I don't believe in altering the constitution.
Andrew BreitbartThe God we worship is no respecter of persons, but He is a respecter of men's rights, and a guardian of them-a fact clearly shown in the heaven-inspired Constitution of our country, and in the Gospel itself, which might be termed the Constitution of Eternity.
Orson F. WhitneyThe Founders who crafted our Constitution and Bill of Rights were careful to draft a Constitution of limited powers - one that would protect Americans' liberty at all times - both in war, and in peace.
Al FrankenA constitution, therefore, is to a government what the laws made afterwards by that government are to a court of judicature. The court of judicature does not make the laws, neither can it alter them; it only acts in conformity to the laws made: and the government is in like manner governed by the constitution.
Thomas PaineFifteen years after the new dispensations started in South Africa, if one looks back, there are reasons to be positive and say we have achieved what we wanted to achieve, but there are also reasons for concern. Not everything turned out exactly as I would have liked it to turn out. On the positive side, we have a good constitution, there has been no effort to really amend the constitution and change the values and the principles contained therein and in our bill of rights.
Frederik Willem de KlerkWe need to reform the constitution in Chile. The current one was written and passed in 1980 during the dictatorship. Some changes were made after the return of democracy, but its origins remain illegitimate. Instead of continuing to make fixes here and there, we need to undertake fundamental changes to our constitution to make it reflect the reality of our democratic society.
Michelle BacheletThis 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 FabiusNo law can give Congress a backbone if it refuses to stand off as the coequal branch the Constitution made it.
Trey GowdyDespite two decisions, in 2008 and 2010, by the U.S. Supreme Court unequivocally affirming that the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms against infringement by the government, state legislatures continue to do just that - enact laws that significantly infringe this fundamental human right.
Bob BarrWe misread the Fifth Amendment [of Constitution] and have been misreading it for the past three decades.
Joe BidenThe Constitution guarantees protection to property, and we must make that promise good. But it does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation. It is necessary that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political purposes; it is still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly enforced.
Theodore RooseveltTo the Baptist Churches on Neal's Greek on Black Creek, North Carolina I have received, fellow-citizens, your address, approving my objection to the Bill containing a grant of public land to the Baptist Church at Salem Meeting House, Mississippi Territory. Having always regarded the practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, I could not have otherwise discharged my duty on the occasion which presented itself
James MadisonHence we say, that the Constitution of the United States is a glorious standard; it is founded in the wisdom of God. It is a heavenly banner; it is to all those who are privileged with the sweets of liberty, like the cooling shades and refreshing waters of a great rock in a thirsty and weary land. It is like a great tree under whose branches men from every clime can be shielded from the burning rays of the sun.
Joseph Smith, Jr.Let's see in those indictments you can't level at Sweden, they never tried to ban the constitution or undermine the settlement that they wanted. Well you can't say that of Canada. Any indication of revolt on the part of Quebec was either bought off, with a good deal of corruption.
Jane JacobsWe've got some people who think Shariah law oughta be the law of the land, forget the Constitution. But the guns are there, the Second Amendment is there, to make sure all of the rest of the amendments are followed.
Louie GohmertNow, I am not caring today, for myself, anything at all about a political party tag. So far as I am concerned, I want to know what the man stands for....When I find out these things, then I know who it is who should receive my support, and I care not what his party tag is....Today, our duty transcends party allegiance; our duty today is allegiance to the Constitution as it was given to us by the Lord.
J. Reuben ClarkWhat's the difference between a liberal and a conservative? A liberal will interpret the constitution, a conservative will quote it!
Rush LimbaughI think I understand the Constitution a little bit because in 1971 we went off the gold standard under President Nixon into the Federal Reserve notes because we were a worldwide currency.
Bill O'ReillySo the Clinton-Gore era culminates with an election as stained as the blue dress, a Democratic chorus complaining that the Constitution should not be the controlling legal authority, and Clinton's understudy dispatching lawyers to litigate this: It depends on what the meaning of 'vote' is.
George WillA government on the principles on which constitutional governments arising out of society are established, cannot have the right of altering itself. If it had, it would be arbitrary. It might make itself what it pleased; and wherever such a right is set up, it shows there is no constitution.
Thomas PaineThink of all that hard work our founding fathers put in - the revolutionizing, the three-fifths compromising, having to write the entire Constitution with a quill - and yet they neglected to include the right to vote.
Mo RoccaConservative concepts believe in little government - take care of yourself, and that makes men who invent things like the constitution! Liberal thought has big government - we'll take care of you - and that creates boys and they create things like Occupy Wall Street! There's a difference between the way men and boys behave.
Brad StineIt is not impossible, of course, after such an administration as Roosevelt's and after the change in method that I could not but adapt in view of my different way of looking at things, that questions should arise as to whether I should go back on the principles of the Roosevelt administration.... I have a government of limited power under a Constitution, and we have got to work out our problems on the basis of law. Now, if that is reactionary, then I am a reactionary.
William Howard TaftI 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 and Ethel RosenbergThere are limits to power, as those who put their hopes in a constitution always discover.
Frank Herbert