Home / Topics / Function Quotes

Function Quotes

Browse 2701 quotes about Function.

Function Quotes

“The function of our Government is to insure to all its citizens, now and hereafter, their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If we of this generation destroy the resources from which our children would otherwise derive their livelihood, we reduce the capacity of our land to support a population, and so either degrade the standard of living or deprive the coming generations of their fight to life on this continent.”

“But it is recognized that punishment for the abuse of the liberty accorded to the press is essential to the protection of the public, and that the common law rules that subject the libeler to responsibility for the public offense, as well as for the private injury, are not abolished by the protection extended in our constitutions. The law of criminal libel rests upon that secure foundation. There is also the conceded authority of courts to punish for contempt when publications directly tend to prevent the proper discharge of judicial functions.”

“I believe that God has endowed men with certain inalienable rights as set forth in the Declaration of Independence and that no legislature and no majority, however great, may morally limit or destroy these; that the sole function of government is to protect life, liberty, and property, and anything more than this is usurpation and oppression.”

Source: The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson

“When a judge goes beyond [his proper function] and reads entirely new values into the Constitution, values the framers and ratifiers did not put there, he deprives the people of their liberty. That liberty, which the Constitution clearly envisions, is the liberty of the people to set their own social agenda through the process of democracy.”

People Values Social Process Liberty Democracy Judging Function Constitution Agendas Framers

Author:Robert Bork

“Outside of the Constitution we have no legal authority more than private citizens, and within it we have only so much as that instrument gives us. This broad principle limits all our functions and applies to all subjects.”

Giving Government Political Liberty Principles Subjects Citizens Limits Authority Function Constitution Instruments Broads

Book:The Papers of Andrew Johnson: February-August 1867

Source: The Papers of Andrew Johnson: February-August 1867

“Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).”

Source: The Virtue of Selfishness

“It is not the function of government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.”

Government Fall Community Liberty Society Citizens Function Errors Libertarian Citizenship Freedom And Liberty Freedom Liberty Limited Government Limited Freedom America Freedom Drug Prohibition Controlling Government Justice Truth

Author:Robert H. Jackson

“The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should serve the state is essentially a Communist notion. In a free society these institutions must be wholly free - which is to say that their function is to serve as checks upon the state.”

Should States Government Church Liberty Function Institutions Presses Notion University Checks Communist Free Society

Author:Alan Barth

“A function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it invites a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it passes for acceptance of an idea.”

“The way to have good and safe government is not to trust it all to one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to everyone exactly the functions in which he is competent ... It is by dividing and subdividing these Republics from the great national one down through all its subordinations until it ends in the administration of everyman's farm by himself, by placing under everyone what his own eye may superintend, that all will be done for the best.”

Way May Ends Done Government Eye Liberty Safe Function Administration Republic Farms Divides Competent Dividing Limiting Government Subordination Everyman

Author:Thomas Jefferson

“My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest shall have the same opportunities as the strongest... no country in the world today shows any but patronizing regard for the weak... Western democracy, as it functions today, is diluted fascism... true democracy cannot be worked by twenty men sitting at the center. It has to be worked from below, by the people of every village.”

“The function of the true state is to impose the minimum restrictions and safeguard the maximum liberties of the people, and it never regards the person as a thing.”

People Persons States Government Liberty Function Regard Minimum Maximum Restriction

Author:Immanuel Kant

“It is no more the function of government to impose a moral code than to impose a religious code. And for the same reason.”

Reason Government Religious Liberty Moral Function Libertarian Code Libertarianism Moral Code

Book:The Web of Government

Source: The Web of Government

“It is a reality attested by all history that if a republic assumes imperial functions it will not remain a republic.”

Ifs Reality Liberty Function Assuming Libertarian Republic Libertarianism

Author:Felix Morley

“My fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe; who presides in the councils of nations; and whose providential aid can supply every human defect; that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the People of the United States, a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good.”

“It is said that it is far more difficult to hold and maintain leadership (liberty) than it is to attain it. Success is a ruthless competitor for it flatters and nourishes our weaknesses and lulls us into complacency. We bask in the sunshine of accomplishment and lose the spirit of humility which helps us visualize all the factors which have contributed to our success. We are apt to forget that we are only one of a team, that in unity there is strength and that we are strong only as long as each unit in our organization functions with precision.”

“That the sole object and only legitimate end of government is to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property, and when the government assumes other functions it is usurpation and oppression.”

Ends Government Liberty Objects Citizens Protect Function Assuming Property Oppression Enjoyment Sole Usurpation

Book:An enemy hath done this

Source: An enemy hath done this

“Privacy is a function of liberty.”

Liberty Function Privacy

Author:Edward Snowden