Best 592 quotes in «constitution quotes» category

When the Chief Justice read me the oath,' he [FDR] later told an adviser, 'and came to the words "support the Constitution of the United States" I felt like saying: "Yes, but it's the Constitution as I understand it, flexible enough to meet any new problem of democracy--not the kind of Constitution your Court has raised up as a barrier to progress and democracy.

When the Romans looked a little baffled, he said, "Let us suppose that certain crimes in the Constitution you are now planning carry the capital penalty. And let us then suppose that future generations of politicians shall say, 'That is not exactly what our fathers intended in that particular table of law.' or, 'They really intended such and such.' Who can then refute the politicians? Who among you would be alive to insist that indeed the old meaning was intended? In hsort, different ages would have different interpretations for their own purposes.

With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word 'intellectual,' of course, became the swear word it deserved to be. You always dread the unfamiliar. Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally ‘bright,’ did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn’t it this bright boy you selected and tortured after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves again. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? Me?

A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state.

Acknowledgment of God is not now, or ever has been, a violation of the US constitution.

A constitution is framed for ages to come, and is designed to approach immortality as nearly as human institutions can approach it.

Acting forces you to ask yourself, 'Can my constitution take a decade of constant rejection?' And after ten years, you either make it or you don't. And the problem is they don't tell you in advance.

Yes," said Pericles. "Today's patriotism may be tomorrow's treason, if it serves any judge or politician. And so it would go with any statute you might define today, no matter how explicit the terms. Let us suppose that a future Roman Head of Stae is a plotting and ambitious his country. So he might say to his pople, 'I love my country and in the name of that love I propose such and such an amendment to the Constitution, of which our fathers would have approved in the light of today's needs and changing circumstances. In truth, the Constitution of our fathers really means so-and-so.' I assure you, gentlemen, that he will already have a band of fellow traitors who will uphold him, and help to confuse the citizens. Then, if any patriot would oppose him the traitor will denounce him for treason! You can be certain, then,, that the unfortunate patriot would suffer the penalty for the alleged crime.

You've granted me eyes to see and ears to hear and with more knowledge comes more sorrow. Only true substance can pay for a due but a print out of the false can only discharge, how true. Taking the false to introduce as a truth, polluting our minds, yoking us with a noose. Economic slavery, the complete opposite of freedom and bravery. I amend these words to constitute what's meant to we, as in us, the French area holds the trusts, friendship to hear what I'm saying with God is a must.

Absolute monarchy,... is the easiest death, the true Euthanasia of the BRITISH constitution.

A conflict of values is not a misunderstanding. Islamic orthodoxy and the German constitution are not compatible.

A country that can put men on the moon can put women in the constitution.

A 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.

All constitutions, those of the States no less than that of the nation, are designed, and must be interpreted and administered so as to fit human rights.

A good constitution is infinitely better than the best despot.

A judge should be evaluated by whether he faithfully upholds his oath to God, not to the people, to the state or to the Constitution.

A federal judge did as he was supposed to do and upheld the Constitution. We should be thankful that we have judiciary that will do that.

A 'living constitution' is a dead constitution, because it does not do the one and only thing a written constitution is supposed to do: provide parameters around the power of officials.

Allowing Texas to display the Ten Commandments on State property but disallowing Kentucky courthouses from doing the same is a poor and flawed interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.

All 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.

Allowing a non-lawyer to be on the Supreme Court strikes me as a very American thing, in a good way. Another is that the speaker of the house doesn't have to be a member of congress. He or she can be anyone. I'm not sure if James Madison really intended that, or if the wording was accidentally imprecise, but the Constitution, as a recall, simply says that the House shall chuse a speaker.

Americans worship the Constitution but do not observe it.

Amend Constitution to remove aliens' birthright citizenship.

America derives its laws from its Constitution. It derives its values from the Bible. We don't get inalienable rights from the Constitution; we get them from God.

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.

An Affront to the Rule of Law and to the Constitution Itself

Among the expected glories of the Constitution, next to the abolition of Slavery was that of Rum.

An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of property in a slave in not "distinctly and expressly affirmed" in it.

Any judicial nominee who has said that the Constitution means what it says, not what judges would like it to mean, is going to be called an 'extremist.' That person will be said to be 'out of the mainstream.' But the mainstream is itself the problem.

Any change of government which has to be introduced should be one which men, starting from their existing constitutions, will be both willing and able to adopt, since there is quite as much trouble in the reformation of an old constitution as in the establishment of a new one, just as to unlearn is as hard as to learn.

A physician, after he had felt the pulse of Pausanias, and considered his constitution, saying, "He ails nothing," "It is because, sir," he replied, "I use none of your physic.

Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be 'perceived as favoring one religion over another,' the very 'risk the [Constitution's] Establishment Clause was designed to preclude.

Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, of course, lays out the delegated, enumerated, and therefore limited powers of Congress. Only through a deliberate misreading of the general welfare and commerce clauses of the Constitution has the federal government been allowed to overreach its authority and extend its tendrils into every corner of civil society.

Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution says Congress has the ability to coin money and regulate the currency and doesn't say anything about gold or silver.

A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind.

As a framer and defender of the Constitution [Madison] had no peer.

As new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.

As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom.

At Rest An American Soldier And Defender of the Constitution.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Colin Campbell says that every member of the Georgia General Assembly with an IQ above 85 should be required to wear a crash helmet. That should take about ... oh, say 15 helmets?

At least 3% of the signers of the Constitution must have been gay, since that's the low estimate for any population sample. It was probably higher, given that they were a pretty talented bunch and wore wigs.

A treaty cannot be made which alters the Constitution of the country, or which infringes and express exceptions to the power of the Constitution.

But the Constitution was made not only for southern and northern states, but for states neither northern nor southern, namely, the western states, their coming in being foreseen and provided for.

Beauty is nothing else but a just accord and mutual harmony of the members, animated by a healthful constitution.

But I deny that the Constitution recognizes property in man.

But I think the possibility of a black and white society feeding each other's expertises, living harmoniously, will probably go along in fits and starts now but at least it has a great constitution now to back it up.

But while the American Constitution was the child of war, ours grew out of discussion, bargaining and negotiation.

But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes.

But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.

Constitution is a living document; no strict constructionism.