Best constitution & firsts Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words "no" and "not" employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights.”

“If these precedents are to stand unimpeached, and to provide sanctions for the continued conduct of America affairs-the Constitution may be nullified by the President and officers who have taken the oath and are under moral obligation to uphold it....they may substitute personal and arbitrary government-the first principle of the totalitarian system against which it has been alleged that World War II was waged-while giving lip service to the principle of constitutional government.”

“Even the country's first president chafed at the limits placed on him by the writers of the U.S. Constitution. From the nature of the Constitution, ... I must approve all the parts of a bill, or reject it in toto.”

Firsts Country President Limits Constitution Bills Rejects

Author:George Washington

“If our constitution had followed the style of Saint Paul, the First Amendment might have concluded: "But the greatest of these is speech." In the darkness of tyranny, this is the key to the sunlight. If it is granted, all doors open. If it is withheld, none.”

Ifs Firsts Might Darkness Doors Style Keys Speech Constitution Saint Tyranny Granted Amendments Sunlight First Amendment Saint Paul

Book:Rights for Americans: the speeches of Robert F. Kennedy

Source: Rights for Americans: the speeches of Robert F. Kennedy

“The First Amendment, I think, is the jewel of our Constitution.”

Thinking Firsts Constitution Amendments Jewels First Amendment

Author:Samuel Alito

“The First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights in the United States Constitution were being violated in Albany again and again - freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, the equal protection of the laws - I could count at least 30 such violations. Yet the president, sworn to uphold the Constitution, and all the agencies of the United States government at his disposal, were nowhere to be seen.”

“Despite the apparent absoluteness of the First Amendment, there are any number of ways of getting around it, ways that are known to any student of law. In general, the strategy is to manipulate the distinction between speech and action which is at bottom a distinction between inconsequential and consequential behavior.”

Way Firsts Action Law Numbers Known Students Speech Behavior Constitution Strategy Bottom Despite Distinction Amendments Manipulate First Amendment Inconsequential

Author:Stanley Fish

“To form a truly free constitution, that's to say, truly just and wise, the first point, the main point, the capital point, is that all the laws be agreed on by the people, after considered reflection, and especially having taken time to see what's at stake.”

People Firsts Form Law Taken Wise Reflection Constitution Stakes

Author:Jean-Paul Marat

“The first lesson, for all Canadians, is that the closed door, top down approaches to constitution making do not provide the public input or debate necessary to achieve a constitutional consensus that will be supported by the people.”

People Firsts Doors Achieve Lessons Approach Constitution Debate Consensus Input Closed Doors Top Down

Author:Preston Manning

“Pat Buchanan... was fired by MSNBC for doing nothing more than voicing his rock-solid conservative thoughts on the otherwise failing network... The real message of the left is intolerance, zealotry, bigotry and hate. The left has no use for the First Amendment or the rest of the Constitution unless it fits their multicultural, euro-socialist agenda, which is failing all across Europe and everywhere it is practiced.”

Firsts Real Use Hate Left Failing Rocks Fit Messages Europe Constitution Conservative Agendas Bigotry Amendments Intolerance Socialist Doing Nothing First Amendment Euro Multicultural Zealotry

Author:Ted Nugent

“The first essential responsibility of the state is control of the market-place: there must be some official charged with the duty of seeing that honest dealing and good order prevail. For one of the well-nigh essential activities of all states is the buying and selling of goods to meet their mutual basic needs; this is the quickest way to self-sufficiency, which seems to be what moves men to combine under a single constitution.”

“But the United States is neither a Christian nation nor the exclusive home of any particular religious group. Non-Christians are not guests. We are as much hosts as any Mayflower-descendant Protestant. It is our home as well as theirs. And in a home with so many owners, there can be no official sectarian prayer. That is what the First Amendment is all about, and the first act by the new administration was in defiance of our Constitution.”

“It is contended by many that ours is a Christian government, founded upon the Bible, and that all who look upon the book as false or foolish are destroying the foundation of our country. The truth is, our government is not founded upon the rights of gods, but upon the rights of men. Our Constitution was framed, not to declare and uphold the deity of Christ, but the sacredness of humanity. Ours is the first government made by the people and for the people. It is the only nation with which the gods have had nothing to do.”

“I would not look with favor upon a President working to subvert the First Amendment's guarantees of religious liberty ... Neither do I look with favor upon those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by requiring a religious test - even by indirection.”

Firsts Looks President Religious Liberty Atheism Tests Constitution Positive Atheism Favors Guarantees Articles Amendments First Amendment Religious Liberty

Author:John F. Kennedy

“Self-trust is the first secret of success, the belief that if you are here the authorities of the universe put you here, and for cause, or with some task strictly appointed you in your constitution, and so long as you work at that you are well and successful”

Ifs Firsts Wells Long Self Universe Belief Causes Secret Successful Authority Tasks Constitution Secret To Success Self Trust

Book:The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Source: The Spiritual Emerson: Essential Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Enslave a man and you destroy his ambition, his enterprise, his capacity. In the constitution of human nature, the desire of bettering one's condition is the mainspring of effort. The first touch of slavery snaps this spring.”

Men Firsts Humans Desire Effort Conditions Human Nature Ambition Spring Capacity Constitution Slavery Enterprise Snaps

Book:Slavery

Source: Slavery

“In the First Amendment to the Constitution, the Founders made it clear that this was not to be a sky-god nation with a national religion like that of England, from whom we had just separated. It is curious how little understood this amendment is-yes, everyone has a right to worship any god he chooses but he does not have the right to impose his beliefs on others who do not happen to share in his superstitions and taboos.”

Firsts Littles Doe Made Happens Religion Belief Nations Clear Sky Share Worship Understood Constitution England Curious Made It Amendments Superstitions Founders First Amendment Taboo

Author:Gore Vidal

“Other people had strived for freedom and promise and ratatatata but the Constitution [of USA] was the first time we codified it aspirationally and wrote it down and put it up on a wall and said, "this is us." If your father was a cobbler, and his father was a cobbler, and his father was a cobbler, you don't have to be a cobbler.”

People Ifs Firsts Said Father Wall Promise First Time Constitution Down And Usa Cobblers

Author:Ben Dreyfuss

“I imagine an America that can actually change. That we become a nation that prospers again but without pillaging the resources of nations that make their people hate us. That we become a nation that, as the constitution says in its preamble, its very first paragraph, 'promotes the general welfare' of its people.”

People Firsts America Hate Nations Imagine Resources Constitution Welfare Paragraph General Welfare Preamble Pillaging

Author:Richard Schiff

“There is no separation of church and state. Modern US Supreme Courts have raped the Constitution and raped the Christian faith and raped the churches by misinterpreting what the Founders had in mind in the First Amendment to the Constitution.”

“In the first place, then, men should guard against the beginning of change, and in the second place they should not rely upon the political devices of which I have already spoken invented only to deceive the people, for they are proved by experience to be useless.”

People Men Should Firsts Political Constitution Useless Rely Devices Deceiving Rely Upon Second Place

Book:Aristotle's Politics: Writings from the Complete Works: Politics, Economics, Constitution of Athens

Source: Aristotle's Politics: Writings from the Complete Works: Politics, Economics, Constitution of Athens

“There are three qualifications required in those who have to fill the highest offices, - (1) first of all, loyalty to the established constitution; (2) the greatest administrative capacity; (3) virtue and justice of the kind proper to each form of government.”

Firsts Kind Government Form Three Justice Virtue Office Highest Capacity Constitution Loyalty Forms Of Government Qualifications Administrative

Book:The Essential Aristotle

Source: The Essential Aristotle

“My definition of secularism is very clear. The sole religion of the Government is Nation First, the holy book is the Constitution.”

Firsts Book Government Nations Democracy Clear Holy India Constitution Election Definitions Sole Secularism Holy Books

Author:Narendra Modi

“Government has only one religion - India first! Government has one holy book - the Constitution. The Government must be immersed in only one Bhakti- Bharat Bhakti! The Government's only strength is Jan Shakti! Government's only ritual is the well being of the 125 crore Indians! The only code of conduct of the Government should be 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas!”

Should Firsts Wells Book Government Politics Holy India Constitution Well Being Code Ritual Holy Books Bhakti Shakti Bharat

Author:Narendra Modi

“Why would I be willing to challenge my Republican leadership? Because my allegiance will always be to the Constitution and the American people first and foremost, not to my political party.”

People Firsts Political Challenges Party Willing Republican Constitution Political Parties Allegiance

Author:Matt Salmon

“First, the constitution ought to secure a genuine and guard against a select militia, by providing that the militia shall always be kept well organized, armed, and disciplined, and include, according to the past and general usuage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms; and that all regulations tending to render this general militia useless and defenceless, by establishing select corps of militia, or distinct bodies of military men, not having permanent interests and attachments in the community to be avoided.”

“I must acknowledge God. It says so in the Constitution of Alabama. It says so in the First Amendment of the Constitution.”

Firsts Constitution Scary Acknowledge Amendments First Amendment Alabama

Author:Roy Moore

“Lately the First Amendment has been interpreted to deny equal protection of the law to those who believe in God. The Constitution established freedom for religion, not freedom from religion!”

Firsts Believe Has Beens Christian Law Religious Equal Constitution Deny Protection Believe In God Amendments First Amendment Freedom Of Religion Equal Protection

Author:Jack Kemp

“Since the writing of our Constitution, our religious liberties have been systematically threatened and whittled away by Supreme Court justices who interpret the First Amendment as a prohibition against religious activity on public property.”

Source: A Nation Without a Conscience

“We define thermodynamics ... as the investigation of the dynamical and thermal properties of bodies, deduced entirely from the first and second law of thermodynamics, without speculation as to the molecular constitution.”

Firsts Body Law Constitution Property Investigation Speculation Thermodynamics Thermal

Author:James Clerk Maxwell

“No one understands that the First Amendment is only important if you are going to offend somebody. If you're not going to offend somebody, you don't need protection of the First Amendment.”

Ifs Needs Firsts Important Reality History Constitution Protection Amendments Free Speech First Amendment Disobedience Civil Disobedience

Author:Larry Flynt

“For an American to be patriotic is to be loyal to the principles of our Constitution, and the First Amendment. The truth is that the policies of the government is sometimes in conflict with that. In our country, patriotism should not be defined as obedience to an authority.”

Should Firsts Country Sometimes Government Principles Policy Truth Is Conflict Authority Constitution Our Country Defined Obedience Patriotic Loyal Amendments First Amendment

Author:Daniel Ellsberg

“All ideas having even the slightest redeeming social importance - unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinion, have the full protection of the guarantees [of the First Amendment].”

“We start with first principles. The Constitution creates a Federal Government of enumerated powers.”

Firsts Government Principles Power Constitution Federal Government

Author:William Rehnquist

“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.”

“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.”

Firsts Persons Important Religion Social Creative Rights Conditions Serious Speech Constitution Setting Settings Alternatives Guarantees Amendments First Amendment Social Conditions

Book:Creationism on Trial: Evolution and God at Little Rock

Source: Creationism on Trial: Evolution and God at Little Rock

“Every so often we hear people clamor for a change. Let's change the Constitution, change the form of Government, change everything for better or worse except to change the only thing that needs changing first: The human heart and our standard of success and human values.”

People Needs Firsts Humans Heart Government Form Values Change Standards Constitution Human Heart Forms Of Government Human Values Clamor

Author:William J. H. Boetcker

“I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”

“The Constitution does not guarantee freedom of worship - it guarantees freedom of religion. And this is what I call America's first freedom...”

Firsts Doe America Worship Constitution Guarantees Freedom Of Religion

Author:Rick Warren

“The Constitution, in addition to delegating certain enumerated powers to Congress, places whole areas outside the reach of Congress' regulatory authority. The First Amendment, for example, is fittingly celebrated for preventing Congress from "prohibiting the free exercise" of religion or "abridging the freedom of speech." The Second Amendment similarly appears to contain an express limitation on the government's authority.”

Firsts Whole Government Certain Example Exercise Speech Authority Areas Constitution Congress Limitation Amendments Freedom Of Speech First Amendment Second Amendment Preventing

Author:Clarence Thomas

“If an angel should be winged from Heaven, on an errand of mercy to our country, the first accents that would glow on his lips would be, Beware! Be cautious! You have everything to lose; nothing to gain. We live under the only government that ever existed which was framed by the unrestrained and deliberate consultations of the people. Miracles do not cluster. That which has happened but once in six thousand years cannot be expected to happen often. Such a government, once gone, might leave a void, to be filled, for ages, with revolution and tumult, riot and despotism.”

“If Aristotle, Livy, and Harrington knew what a republic was, the British constitution is much more like a republic than an empire. They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men. If this definition is just, the British constitution is nothing more or less than a republic, in which the king is first magistrate. This office being hereditary, and being possessed of such ample and splendid prerogatives, is no objection to the government's being a republic, as long as it is bound by fixed laws, which the people have a voice in making, and a right to defend.”

Source: The Works of John Adams Vol. 4: Novanglus, Thoughts on Government, Defence of the Constitution I

“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.”

People Firsts Has Beens Constitution Protection Secure Amendments First Amendment

Book:Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, William J. Clinton, 1993, Bk. 2, August 1 to December 31, 1993

Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, William J. Clinton, 1993, Bk. 2, August 1 to December 31, 1993

“The states have authority to interpret the Constitution, enforce it, and protect the people from violations of it by the federal government In the first place, there is not a syllable in the plan under consideration which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution, or which gives them any greater latitude in this respect than may be claimed by the courts of every State.”

People Giving Firsts May States Government Law Spirit Greater Plans Protect Authority Constitution Court Empowering Consideration Federal Government Violation Syllables Latitude

Author:Alexander Hamilton

“I call myself a radical conservative. What's that? Well, let's analyze it. Go to the dictionary. Radical: One who gets to the roots of things. And I'm a conservative because I want to conserve the green of the grass, the potability of drinking water, the first amendment of the Constitution and whatever sanity we have left.”

Want Firsts Wells Left Water Roots Constitution Green Drinking Conservative Radical Grass Sanity Amendments Dictionary First Amendment Drinking Water

Author:Studs Terkel

“If we set the precedent of limiting the First Amendment, in order to protect the sensibilities of those who are offended by flag burning, what will we say the next time someone is offended by some other minority view, or by some other person's exercise of the freedom the Constitution is supposed to protect?”

Ifs Firsts Persons Order Next Views Exercise Protect Constitution Burning Minorities Flags Amendments Sensibility Next Time Offended First Amendment Precedent Flag Burning

Author:Edward Kennedy

“The First Amendment of the Constitution was not written to protect the people from religion; that amendment was written to protect religion from government tyranny. . . But now we're told our children have no right to pray in school. Nonsense. The pendulum has swung too far toward intolerance against genuine religious freedom. It is time to redress the balance.”

“Cutting corners no doubt makes the job easier for the government, but making the government's job easier is rarely a priority. Preserving the Constitution, fighting off the nibblers and chippers, even nibblers and chippers with good intentions, was once regarded by conservatives as the first duty of the citizen. It still is.”

Firsts Stills Government Jobs Fighting Doubt Cutting Duty Citizens Easier Constitution Intention Corners Priorities No Doubt Good Intentions Cutting Corners

Author:Wesley Pruden

“How to check these unconstitutional invasions of rights by the Federal judiciary? Not by impeachment in the first instance, but by a strong protestation of both houses of Congress that such and such doctrines advanced by the Supreme Court are contrary to the Constitution; and if afterwards they relapse into the same heresies, impeach and set the whole adrift. For what was the government divided into three branches, but that each should watch over the others and oppose their usurpations?”

“All presidents but Jefferson have argued that their first job was to keep us safe. All presidents but Jefferson were wrong. If you read the Constitution, you will see that the President's first job - as Jefferson understood well - is to keep us free.”

Ifs Firsts Wells Jobs President Safe Understood Constitution

Author:Andrew Napolitano

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