Quotessence
Home / Topics / Constitution Quotes

Constitution Quotes

Browse 2680 quotes about Constitution.

Related topics

GovernmentStatesPeopleLawIfsMenUnitedLibertyUnited StatesShouldRightsThinkingCountryAmericaPresidentPoliticalPrinciplesCitizensMayBelieveFirstsConstitution Of The United StatesAmendmentsCongressCourtNationsJudgingDoeHas BeensWantKnowsWayMadeWellsAuthorityJusticeGivingHumansProtectDemocracyReligiousMeanDocumentsWrittenNeedsWarPoliticsYearsChurchFormFatherIndividualWorldSaidWould BeFactsImportantValuesPersonsSeparationHandsFoundingFreedomPartyDutySupremeUnionsMatterEqualGuaranteesIndependenceTodayVoteFirst AmendmentFundamentalsGivenI BelieveIdeasOrderPurposeFramersMindPropertyWholeDeclarationExecutivesFederal GovernmentInterestLibertarianLongOathProtectionBasesExerciseOfficeOughtRepublicBillsBodyCertainmore

Constitution Quotes

“[Oliver North is a] document-shredding, Constitution-trashing, Commander in Chief-bashing, Congress-thrashing, uniform-shaming, Ayatollah-loving, arms-dealing, criminal-protecting, résumé-enhancing, Noriega-coddling, Social Security-threatening, public school-denigrating, Swiss-banking-law-breaking, letter-faking, self-serving, election-losing, snake-oil salesman who can't tell the difference between the truth and a lie.”

SelfSchoolFunnyLawLyingSocialDifferencesSecurityArmsLosingLettersConstitutionElectionCongressOilCriminalsChiefsServingUniformsDocumentsThreateningSnakesSocial SecurityBankingPublic SchoolCommandersSalesmanSwissCommander In ChiefSelf ServingShreddingLaw Breaking
Author:Chuck Robb
Create image

“even the best of constitutions need sometimes to be amended and improved, for after all there is but one constitution which is infallible, but one constitution that ought to be held sacred, and that is the human constitution.”

NeedsHumansSometimesOughtConstitutionSacredWomens RightsInfallible
Book:Mistress of herself: speeches and letters of Ernestine L. Rose, early women's rights leader
Create image

“Nowhere else in the Constitution does a "right" attributed to "the people" refer to anything other than an individual right. What is more, in all six other provisions of the Constitution that mention "the people," the term unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset... The Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms... The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it "shall not be infringed."”

PeopleDoeLawPoliticalPoliticsIndividualTermCommunityExistenceArmsMembersSixConstitutionInstrumentsAmendmentsProvisionSecond AmendmentBearable
Author:Antonin Scalia
Create image

“What we learn for the sake of knowing, we hold; what we learn for the sake of accomplishing some ulterior end, we forget as soon as that end has been gained. This, too, is automatic action in the constitution of the mind itself, and it is fortunate and merciful that it is so, for otherwise our minds would be soon only rubbish-rooms.”

MindHas BeensEndsWould BeActionForgetRoomsKnowledgeKnowingLearningConstitutionSakeFortunateMercifulRubbish
Author:Anna Brackett
Create image

“The principle of free speech is no new doctrine born of the Constitution of the United States. It is a heritage of English-speaking peoples, which has been won by incalculable sacrifice, and which they must preserve so long as they hope to live as free men.”

MenLongHas BeensStatesBornFreedomUnitedResponsibilityPrinciplesHistoryUnited StatesSacrificeSpeechConstitutionDoctrinePreservesHeritageFree SpeechFree ManConstitution Of The United StatesEnglish SpeakingHope To Live
Author:Robert M. La Follette, Sr.
Create image

“We recognize the force of the argument that the effects of war under modern conditions may be felt in the economy for years and years, and that if the war power can be used in days of peace to treat all the wounds which war inflicts on our society, it may not only swallow up all other powers of Congress but largely obliterate the Ninth and the Tenth Amendments as well.”

IfsYearsWellsMayWarUsedForceFeltPowerEconomyModernConditionsEffectsEconomicsArgumentTreatsConstitutionCongressWoundsOur SocietyAmendmentsEffects Of War
Author:William O. Douglas
Create image

“The greater the importance to safeguarding the community from incitements to the overthrow of our institutions by force and violence, the more imperative is the need to preserve the constitutional rights of free speech, free press and free assembly in order to maintain the opportunity for free political discussion.”

NeedsPoliticalOrderOpportunityIndividualForceCommunityJusticeGreaterRightsViolenceSpeechImportanceConstitutionInstitutionsPressesPreservesDiscussionFree SpeechImperativesAssemblyIndividual RightsFree PressConstitutional RightsIncitementSafeguarding
Author:Charles Evans Hughes
Create image

“Particularly when the war power is invoked to do things to the liberties of people, or to their property or economy that only indirectly affect conduct of the war and do not relate to the engagement of the war itself, the constitutional basis should be scrutinized with care. ... I would not be willing to hold that war powers may be indefinitely prolonged merely by keeping legally alive a state of war that had in fact ended. I cannot accept the argument that war powers last as long as the effects and consequences of war for if so they are permanent -- as permanent as the war debts.”

PeopleIfsShouldMayLongWarStatesFactsCareLastsLibertyAcceptingPowerEconomyAliveEffectsWillingConsequenceEconomicsArgumentBasesConstitutionPropertyDebtRelatePermanentEngagement
Author:Robert H. Jackson
Create image

“That the people have an original right to establish, for their future government, such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their own happiness, is the basis, on which the whole American fabric has been erected.... The principles, therefore, so established, are deemed fundamental. And as the authority, from which they proceed, is supreme ... they are designed to be permanent.... The powers of the legislature are defined, and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the constitution is written.”

PeopleMayHas BeensWholeGovernmentOpinionPrinciplesWrittenLimitsAuthorityBasesConstitutionOriginalsFundamentalsForgottenSupremeDefinedPermanentFabricMistakenLegislature
Author:John Marshall
Create image

“In my judgment the people of no nation can lose their liberty so long as a Bill of Rights like ours survives and its basic purposes are conscientiously interpreted, enforced and respected so as to afford continuous protection against old, as well as new, devices and practices which might thwart those purposes. I fear to see the consequences of the Court's practice of substituting its own concepts of decency and fundamental justice for the language of the Bill of Rights as its point of departure in interpreting and enforcing that Bill of Rights.”

PeopleWellsLongMightLawPurposeLanguageNationsLosesJusticeLibertyPracticeRightsJudgmentConceptsConsequenceConstitutionFundamentalsBillsCourtProtectionDevicesDecencyDepartureBill Of RightsInterpreting
Author:Hugo Black
Create image

“What finally emerges from the 'clear and present danger' cases is a working principle that the substantive evil must be extremely serious and the degree of imminence extremely high before utterances can be punished...It must be taken as a command of the broadest scope that explicit language, read in the context of a liberty-loving society, will allow.”

EvilLanguageJusticeLibertyPrinciplesCasesTakenClearDangerSeriousDegreesConstitutionCommandScopeUtteranceExplicit
Author:Hugo Black
Create image

“The first ten amendments were proposed and adopted largely because of fear that Government might unduly interfere with prized individual liberties. The people wanted and demanded a Bill of Rights written into their Constitution. The amendments embodying the Bill of Rights were intended to curb all branches of the Federal Government in the fields touched by the amendments-Legislative, Executive, and Judicial.”

PeopleFirstsGovernmentMightWantedIndividualLibertyRightsWrittenFieldsTenConstitutionBillsBranchesTouchedExecutivesAmendmentsInterfereFederal GovernmentAdoptedJudicialBill Of RightsCurbIndividual Liberty
Author:Hugo Black
Create image

“The First Amendment is important not only to guarantee the rights of alternative religions and of nonreligious persons in society; it is also important in setting the only possible legal and social condition for the creative health of serious religion itself.”

FirstsPersonsImportantReligionSocialCreativeRightsConditionsSeriousSpeechConstitutionSettingSettingsAlternativesGuaranteesAmendmentsFirst AmendmentSocial Conditions
Book:Creationism on Trial: Evolution and God at Little Rock
Create image

“The absence of utopianism in the Constitution, law, and traditional political culture has been ... important in limiting expectations concerning what can be achieved by politics. The history of the last two centuries confirms what the framers of the Constitution understood: that the perfect is the enemy of the good, and the search for unalloyed virtue in public life leads to unalloyed terror.”

Has BeensTwoImportantLastsLawPoliticalCulturePerfectEnemyVirtueCenturyExpectationsUnderstoodConstitutionTerrorAbsenceTraditionalPublic LifeFramersPolitical Culture
Author:Jeane Kirkpatrick
Create image

“The woman movement is one which is uniting by co-operating influences, all the antagonisms that are warring on the family state. Spiritualism, free love, free divorce, the vicious indulgences consequent on unregulated civilization, the worldliness which tempts men and women to avoid large families, often by sinful methods, thus making the ignorant masses the chief supply of the future ruling majorities; and most powerful of all, the feeble constitution and poor health of women, causing them to dread maternity as--what it is fast becoming--an accumulation of mental and bodily tortures.”

MenStatesPoorPowerfulFamilyInfluenceMovementBecomingCivilizationMassMen And WomenConstitutionMethodMajorityDivorceMotherhoodIgnorantChiefsTortureMost PowerfulDreadViciousRulingIndulgenceAccumulationSpiritualismAntagonismUnitingFree LoveWorldlinessMaternityLarge FamilyPoor HealthIgnorant Masses
Book:Woman Suffrage and Woman's Profession
Create image

“The soul sins therefore because, while aiming at good, it makes mistakes about the good, because it is not primary essence. And we see many things done by the Gods to prevent it from making mistakes and to heal it when it has made them. Arts and sciences, curses and prayers, sacrifices and initiations, laws and constitutions, judgments and punishments, all came into existence for the sake of preventing souls from sinning; and when they are gone forth from the body, Gods and spirits of purification cleanse them of their sins.”

ArtMadeSoulDoneBodyLawSpiritPrayerSinExistenceMistakeGoneSacrificeJudgmentEssenceConstitutionSakePunishmentHealPrimariesCurseMaking MistakesThings DonePreventingArt And ScienceInitiationPurificationSinning
Author:Sallust
Create image

“There is, between the sexes, a law of incessant reciprocal action, of which God avails himself in the constitution of the family, when He permits brothers and sisters to nestle about the same hearthstone. Its ministration is essential to the best educational results. Our own educational institutions should rest upon this divine basis.”

ShouldActionLawSexResultsEducationDivineBrotherEssentialsBasesConstitutionInstitutionsEducationalPermitBrothers And SistersIncessantReciprocalBest EducationEducational Institutions
Author:Caroline Wells Healey Dall
Create image

“The chemical compounds are comparable to a system of planets in that the atoms are held together by chemical affinity. They may be more or less numerous, simple or complex in composition, and in the constitution of the materials, they play the same role as Mars and Venus do in our planetary system, or the compound members such as our earth with its moon, or Jupiter with its satellites... If in such a system a particle is replaced by one of different character, the equilibrium can persist, and then the new compound will exhibit properties similar to those shown by the original substance.”

IfsMayDifferentPlayCharacterEarthTogetherSimpleRolesPlanetsMaterialsMoonMembersConstitutionOriginalsPropertyComplexesSubstanceChemicalsAtomsCompositionReplacedPersistMarsParticlesExhibitsCompoundsEquilibriumVenusSatellitesAffinityDifferent CharactersJupiterChemical Compounds
Author:Jean-Baptiste Dumas
Create image

“If colleges wanted to admit only legacies, or only tuba players, or only people who got astonishingly low SAT scores ' to ensure some of their graduates would be U.S. senators one day ' the Constitution wouldn't stop them. What the states, including state colleges, cannot do under the Constitution is discriminate on the basis of race.”

PeopleIfsStatesWould BeWantedRacePlayerCollegeOne DayLowsBasesConstitutionIncludingLegacySatScoreGraduatesSenatorsTubasSat Scores
Author:Ann Coulter
Create image

“It was during the eighteenth century - a period of boastful satisfaction with the nice balances within the English constitution - that Englishmen came to accept the Whig view of the utility of an armed citizenry. The armed citizen was not only affirmed to be protecting himself but, together with his fellows, provided the ultimate check on tyranny.”

TogetherViewsAcceptingNiceCenturyBalanceCitizensPeriodsUltimateConstitutionFellowsSatisfactionTyrannyChecksUtilityEnglishmenSecond AmendmentCitizenryArmed Citizens
Author:Joyce Lee Malcolm
Create image

“There is no doubt, that man is not built to be a carnivorous animal. What a sweet, pleasing and innocent sight is the spectacle of a table served that way and what a difference to a make up of fuming animal meat, slaughtered and dead! Man in no way has the constitution of a carnivorous being. Hunt and voracity are unnatural to him. Man has neither the sharp pointed teeth or claws to slaughter his prey. On the contrary his hands are made to pick fruits, berries and vegetables and teeth appropriate to chew them.”

MenWayMadeHandsDifferencesAnimalDoubtSweetPicksBuiltSightConstitutionTablesFruitContraryTeethInnocentMeatNo DoubtAppropriateVegetablesHuntsPreyUnnaturalSlaughterClawsDead ManBerries
Author:John Ray
Create image