Best 592 quotes in «constitution quotes» category

The right response when, in the army, you are given an unlawful order, is to refuse that order. The right response of a chief executive in this state and in this nation, when faced with an order by a court that he conscientiously believes violates the constitution he is sworn to respect, is to refuse their order!

These liberals are the craziest things. The Constitution, they see things in it that aren't there and ignore things which are. The 14th Amendment, nothing to do with gay marriage.

The Second Amendment is in the Constitution to help citizens protect themselves from people like Senator Dianne Feinstein who would come along, and if they could determine what words you can and cannot say, where and where you can't say them. The Constitution is there to protect you from mayors like Mike Doomberg who wants to tell you how big your beverage can be.

The right of election is the very essence of the constitution.

The Thirteen States are Thirteen Sovereign bodies.

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.

The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself, and not what we have said about it.

The Union, and the Constitution, are the picture of silver, subsequently framed around it. The picture was not made to conceal or destroy the apple, but to adorn and preserve it. The picture was made for the apple-not the apple for the picture.

The thing that distinguishes America is that it is a republican form of government - anything that is not outlawed or specifically barred or regulated by the [Constitution] is LEGAL.

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.

The U.S. constitution is an extraordinary document. In my view, it should not be amended often.

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.

The US Constitution serves the same function as the British royal family: it offers a comforting symbol of tradition and continuity, thereby masking a radical change in the actual system of power.

The United States Constitution builds politics right into the process of selecting federal judges. This third branch, the judiciary, is designed to have a longer view. To have individuals who are more insulated from politics. They're not elected directly. They're appointed for life. So, politics enters, but it's also, controlled. And if you bypass this process, I'm not sure what we do.

The Warren Court wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution... I intend to succeed where they failed.

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.

This constitution is full of mines that are going to explode. The articles stipulated in this constitution will have grave consequences if they are submitted to a referendum. This constitution will lead to a weak Iraq that is unable to defend itself.

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.

They tried to say that being gay is a sin, and I said that adultery is a sin. Adultery is responsible for breaking up more marriages, but do we put that in the Constitution? It’s absurd.

The word 'free' is used three times in the Declaration of Independence and once in the First Amendment to the Constitution, along with 'freedom.' The word 'fair' is not used in either of our founding documents.

This is perhaps the most important statement on religion ever made. It clarified the intent of the founders of the constitution irrespective of the attempts of modern day religious revisionists.

Those who would give us a "living" Constitution are actually giving us a dead one, since such a thing is completely unable to protect us against the encroachments of government power.

...[T]oday's Washington is about as attentive to the Tenth Amendment as the Unitarian Church is to the Book of Revelation.

Tolerance is carved into the rostrum of the U.S. House of Representatives and intolerance should not be carved into the U.S. Constitution.

Today, I am an inquisitor. I shall not sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.

Under the constitution, as the Danish queen I am bound to the Lutheran faith, but that does not exclude people of other faiths.

This nation was established by the God of heaven as a citadel of liberty. A Constitution guaranteeing those liberties was designed under the superintending influence of heaven.

To take a single step beyond the text would be to take possession of a boundless field of power.

To the extent that these [New Deal policies] developed, they were tortured interpretations of a document [the Constitution] intended to prevent them.

Tyranny has perhaps oftener grown out of the assumptions of power, called for, on pressing exigencies, by a defective constitution, than out of the full exercise of the largest constitutional authorities.

Under our [constitutional system] - either we're going to have to rethink our Constitution, or we're going to have to rethink our process of decision-making.

Under the freest constitution ignorant people are still slaves.

U.S. Constitution is under attack from Fundamentalist Islam and shari'a.

Unfortunately, some of the African leaders employ various nefarious means to remain in office far beyond what their constitutions permit.

U.S. Constitution declares rather unambiguously that Congress has the responsibility to “declare war.

Unfortunately, people are re-interpreting the Constitution as a living document, and it's not. It's a solid-based document and it shouldn't be played with.

Vulgar prejudices are those which arise out of accident, ignorance, or authority; natural prejudices are those which arise out of the constitution of the human mind itself.

Very few established institutions, governments and constitutions ...are ever destroyed by their enemies until they have been corrupted and weakened by their friends.

We are a nation of laws. And nobody can ignore our Constitution. No one's above the law. And that includes the president of the United States.

We are a people of faith. We have been so secure in that faith that we have enshrined in our Constitution protection for people who profess no faith. And good for us for doing so. That is what the First Amendment is all about.

We are attempting, by this Constitution, to abolish factions, and to unite all parties for the general welfare.

We are a representative democracy. But how did we get there? We got there through direct action. And that's enshrined in our Constitution and in our values.

We are a nation conceived, born and nurtured by faith... Our faith is declared in our Constitution, on our currency and in our lives.

Vigorous exercise will often fortify a feeble constitution.

We can all live under the Constitution and all express ourself in radically different ways and not control each other.

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.

We have a government of limited power under the Constitution, and we have got to work out our problems on the basis of law.

We have built no temple but the Capitol. We consult no common oracle but the Constitution.

We have built into the constitution of the human race the habit and desire of taking, as divorced from its natural precursor and concomitant of making.

We have introduced a democratic constitution, which put suvery South African on an equal basis.