Best 592 quotes in «constitution quotes» category

Like the British Constitution, she owes her success in practice to her inconsistencies in principle.

Like the British constitution, cricket was not made: it has 'grown'.

Magnanimity is above circumstance; and any virtue which depends on that is more of constitution than of principle.

Make sure the government treats others the same as you would want the government to treat you. ...Once you consent to the government ignoring the Constitution, you deny yourself the protection of the Constitution.

Man is not committed in detail by his biological constitution to any particular variety of behavior.

Many of the opposition [to the new Federal Constitution] wish to take from Congress the power of internal taxation. Calculation has convinced me that this would be very mischievous.

[Marco] Rubio says we should collect all Americans' records all of the time. The Constitution says otherwise. I think they're both wrong. I think we defeat terrorism by showing them that we do not fear them.

Many of the Latter-day Saints have surrendered their independence; they have surrendered their free thought, politically, and we have got to get back to where we are not surrendering the right. We must stay with the right and if we do so God will bless us.

Minorities have a right to appeal to the Constitution as a shield against such oppression.

My constitution was destroyed long ago; now I am living under the bylaws.

My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask who authorized them (the framers of the Constitution) to speak the language of 'We, the People,' instead of 'We, the States'?

My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminuation, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution. It is reason and not passion which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision.

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.

My touchstone for every question is the Constitution.

[M]y wish is, that the Convention may adopt no temporizing expedient, but probe the defects of the Constitution [i.e., the Articles of Confederation] to the bottom, and provide radical cures.

'National Security' is the root password to the Constitution.

Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?

No for the return of Saddam's Baath party. This is against the constitution and those who are negotiating to bring them back are violating the constitution.

No one likes to be treated like people in minority communities. What it's saying is that because you're poor, because you live in a neighborhood that deals with oppressed conditions, you deserve to be treated like a criminal. In our Constitution it says you have the right to live without illegal search and seizure.

Nothing has yet been offered to invalidate the doctrine that the meaning of the Constitution may as well be ascertained by the Legislative as by the Judicial authority.

Not in the constitution, but I would propose a law to the French parliament that provides for reducing the budget deficit year by year, until we have reached a balanced budget by 2017.

Nothing that we have authorized conflicts with any law regarding privacy or any provision of the constitution.

No treaty or international agreement can contravene the Constitution.

Now, how do you explain Obama's claim, that he can kill American citizens without due process? Well, he has his attorney general get up and say, "Well, it doesn't say in the constitution judicial process. It just says due process." Now that's a lawyerly diversion from the truth.

Most faults are not in our Constitution, but in ourselves.

No power over the freedom of religion [is] delegated to the United States by the Constitution.

No philosopher's stone of a constitution can produce golden conduct from leaden instincts.

One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights.

[One] principle that actuated the lives of the fathers who founded our Constitution was faith in God.

Our Constitution gives to bigotry no sanction.

Our constitution enshrines the rule of law, freedom of worship and expression, we cherish these values too.

Our Constitution rests on the good sense and the respect of the American people.

Our Constitution recognises no other power than that of persuasion, for enforcing religious observances.

Our federal Constitution embodies the idea of modern India: it defines not only India but also modernity.

Our great Constitution has been beaten and torn until now it hangs by a single thread, and that thread is our franchise to vote.

Our founders made it extraordinarily difficult to amend the Constitution.

Our ideals of freedom, set forth and realized in our Constitution, are our greatest export to the world.

Our new Soviet constitution will, in my opinion, be the most democratic constitution of all those existing in the world.

Our plans protect freedom and opportunity, and our blueprint is the Constitution of the United States.

Perpetuity is stamped upon the Constitution by the blood of our fathers.

Obama says his recreation consists of reading the Constitution... looking for a loophole.

Perhaps Americans should recognize that if they want to keep their privacy, they should ask the federal government to do only the things that the Constitution allows.

Precedents are dangerous things; let the reins of government then be braced and held with a steady hand, and every violation of the Constitution be reprehended: If defective let it be amended, but not suffered to be trampled upon whilst it has an existence.

President Obama seems to understand the Constitution as a 'set of suggestions.'

Poets should speak out against what we see as the assault against our Constitution and the warmongering that's going on. I'm perfectly willing to lay down my life for my Constitution, but I am not willing to take a life for it or any other reason because I think killing people is counterproductive.

Preventing terrorist attacks is of the highest important, but trashing the Constitution is not the right way to do it.

Privacy is not explicitly spelled out in the Constitution as freedom of speech is in the First Amendment.

[quoting someone else] the American constitution is a document designed by geniuses to be eventually interpreted by idiots

Revolution was written into the U.S. Constitution so it's like they're in a constant state of revolution. But then again, happiness is written into their constitution as well, which makes them pretty unique.

Saying the Constitution is a living document is the same as saying we don't have a Constitution.