Blank Check Quotes

• A state of war is not a blank check... when it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens.

  Sandra Day O'Connor

  War, Rights, Citizens

  8 Copy quote

• I'm not giving the president a blank check, period.

  Jim McDermott

  Giving, President, Checks

  8 Copy quote

• My life is a blank check before God... No strings attached.

  David Platt

  Strings Attached, Life Is, Checks

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• If one's actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others.

  Ayn Rand

  Doe, Needs, Atlas

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.111, Hamilton Books

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• Justice [Sandra Day] O'Connor also brought balance to our highest court; most recently, as been repeated many times, when she cautioned about how war doesn't give a blank check.

  Joe Biden

  War, Giving, Justice

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• She [Justice sandra Day O'Connor] wrote - and this is one we should all remember - she wrote that even war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens. She held that even this president is not above the law.

  Patrick Leahy

  War, Rights, Law

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• As Justice Sandra Day O'Connor stated, even a state of war is not a blank check for a president to do whatever he wants.

  Edward Kennedy

  War, Justice, President

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• The government's assertion that it must be unhindered in protecting our security can camouflage the desire to increase Executive power, while the press's cry of the public's right to know can mask a quest for competitive advantage or a hidden animus. Neither the need to protect our security nor the public's right to know is a blank check.

  Richard Stengel

  Government, Desire, Needs

  4 Copy quote

• Characterization in a play is like a blank check which the dramatist accords to the actor for him to fill in.

  Thornton Wilder

  Play, Actors, Checks

  Thornton Wilder (2014). “The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder, Volume T”, p.266, Theatre Communications Group

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• Music is mere tuning a song with words; to some degree you have a beautiful endeavor of cosigning God's blank checks and you're actually co-creating. You're certainly not the creator with the capital C, but you're embarking on an endeavor, you're using the building blocks that have been given to you by the author of time and space.

  Jon Foreman

  Beautiful, Song, Block

  7 Copy quote

• The American people reject the idea of giving Washington a blank check to increase the debt limit.

  Martha Roby

  Ideas, Giving, People

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• Nine years ago on September 14, 2001, I placed the lone vote against the 'Authorization for Use of Military Force' - an authorization that I knew would provide a blank check to wage war anywhere, at any time, and for any length.

  Barbara Lee

  Military, War, Years

  "Afghanistan War Review Conclusions Misguided" by Barbara Lee, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 16, 2010.

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• Fairness' is one of the great mantras of the left. Since everyone has his own definition of fairness, that word is a blank check for the expansion of government power. What fairness means in practice is that third parties -- busybodies -- can prevent mutual accommodations by others.

  Thomas Sowell

  Party, Mean, Equality

  Thomas Sowell (2013). “Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays”, p.225, Hoover Press

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• If you hate the war, that’s fine. But you should still support the troops. They don’t get to pick where they’re deployed. They just gave the American people a blank check for anything up to and including the value of their lives, and the least everyone else can do is be thankful. Buy them dinner. Mow their yard. Bake them cookies.

  Chris Kyle

  Hate, War, People

  27 Copy quote

• Many plays - certainly mine - are like blank checks. The actors and directors put their own signatures on them.

  Thornton Wilder

  Play, Signatures, Directors

  The New York Mirror, July 13, 1956.

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• And [Asimov]'ll sign anything, hardbacks, softbacks, other people's books, scraps of paper. Inevitably someone handed him a blank check on the occasion when I was there, and he signed that without as much as a waver to his smile — except that he signed: 'Harlan Ellison.

  Isaac Asimov

  Book, People, Paper

  Isaac Asimov (1976). “Murder at the ABA: A Puzzle in Four Days and Sixty Scenes”

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• I don't like people who speak or think in terms of gaining anybody's confidence. If one's actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others, only their rational perception. The person who craves a moral blank check of that kind, has dishonest intentions, whether he admits it to himself or not.

  Ayn Rand

  Thinking, People, Perception

  Ayn Rand (1999). “Ayn Rand Reader”, p.157, Penguin

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• "Judge not, that ye be not judge"... is an abdication of moral responsibility: it is a moral blank check one gives to others in exchange for a moral blank check one expects for oneself. There is no escape from the fact that men have to make choices; so long as men have to make choices, there is no escape from moral values; so long as moral values are at stake, no moral neutrality is possible. To abstain from condemning a torturer, is to become an accesory to the torture and murder of his victims. The moral principle to adopt... is: "Judge, and be prepared to be judged."

  Ayn Rand

  Fear, Responsibility, Men

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• Even in dialogue, your own style rules your selection. Do not give yourself a blank check of this kind: 'I'll merely reproduce what I think a character like so-and-so would say.' You have to reproduce it in the way your literary premises dictate.

  Ayn Rand

  Writing, Character, Thinking

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• Patriotism does not mean giving blind loyalty and a blank check to George W. Bush.

  Jello Biafra

  Loyalty, Mean, Giving

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• White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks.

  Peggy McIntosh

  White Privilege, Clothes, Special

  "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" by Peggy McIntosh, first appeared in Peace and Freedom Magazine (Philadelphia, PA), pp. 10-12, July/August 1989; later quoted in Thomas Norman DeWolf "Inheriting the Trade" (Chapter 4: The Great Folks), www.pbs.org. January 2, 2008.

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• Lofty talk about 'social justice' or 'fairness' boils down to greatly expanded powers for politicians, since those pretty words have no concrete definition. They are a blank check for creating disparities in power that dwarf disparities in income - and are far more dangerous.

  Thomas Sowell

  Dwarves, Creating, Justice

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• Writings scatter to the winds blank checks in an insane charge. And were they not such flying leaves, there would be no purloined letters.

  Jacques Lacan

  Writing, Wind, Flying

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