Bill Of Rights Quotes - Page 3

• The Constitution remains brilliant in its overall design and sound with respect to the Bill of Rights and the separation of powers. But there are numerous archaic provisions that inhibit constructive change and adaptation. These constitutional bits affect the daily life of the republic and every citizen in it.

  Larry Sabato

  Rights, Design, Republic

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• I also wish that the Pledge of Allegiance were directed at the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as it is when the President takes his oath of office, rather than to the flag and the nation

  Carl Sagan

  Rights, Oath Of Office, Wish

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.546, Ballantine Books

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• What does the Negro want? His answer is very simple. He wants only what all other Americans want. He wants opportunity to make real what the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights say, what the Four Freedoms establish. While he knows these ideals are open to no man completely, he wants only his equal chance to obtain them.

  Mary McLeod Bethune

  Real, Opportunity, Simple

  Mary McLeod Bethune, Audrey Thomas McCluskey, Elaine M. Smith (2001). “Mary McLeod Bethune: Building a Better World : Essays and Selected Documents”, p.23, Indiana University Press

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• We have enjoyed so much freedom for so long that we are perhaps in danger of forgetting how much blood it cost to establish the Bill of Rights.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Freedom, 4th Of July, Patriotic

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• A Bill of Rights that means what the majority wants it to mean is worthless.

  Antonin Scalia

  Mean, Rights, Liberty

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• The declaration of rights [Bill of Rights] is, like all other human blessings, alloyed with some inconveniences and not accomplishing fully its object. But the good in this instance vastly outweighs the evil.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Blessing, Rights, Evil

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• The Bill of Rights was not written to protect governments from trouble. It was written precisely to give the people the constitutional means to cause trouble for governments they no longer trusted.

  Henry Steele Commager

  Mean, Rights, Government

  "Letter to the Editor". The New York Times, 1971.

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• Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch. Freedom comes from the recognition of certain rights which may not be taken, not even by a 99% vote. Those rights are spelled out in the Bill of Rights and in our California Constitution. Voters and politicians alike would do well to take a look at the rights we each hold, which must never be chipped away by the whim of the majority.

  James Bovard

  Taken, Two, Lunch

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• Democracy, in any rational form, also imposes conditions on majority rule. That's what the Bill of Rights is about, for example.

  Noam Chomsky

  Rights, Majority Rule, Democracy

  Source: thefifthcolumnnews.com

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• The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy. One's right to life, liberty and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly may not be submitted to vote; they depend on no elections.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Rights, Political, Liberty

  "West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624". Judicial opinion, 1943.

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• A strong body makes the mind strong.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Strong, Exercise, Gun

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, Correspondence, and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Late President of the United States”, p.287

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• It is my belief that there are "absolutes" in our Bill of Rights, and that they were put there on purpose by men who knew what words meant and meant their prohibitions to be "absolutes."

  Hugo Black

  Men, Rights, Bills

  "The Bill of Rights,"NewYork University Law Review, Apr. 1960

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• 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.

  Hugo Black

  Rights, Law, Practice

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• The callous use of general warrants and the disregard for the Bill of Rights must end. Forcing us to choose between our rights and our safety is a false choice and we are better than that as a nation and as a people.

  Rand Paul

  Rights, People, Safety

  "Rand Paul promises to derail NSA vote" By Allie Malloy, www.cnn.com. May 30, 2015.

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• We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.

  Winston Churchill

  Men, Rights, Expression

  The Sinews of Peace, delivered 5 March 1946 Westminster College, Fulton Missouri

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• The Constitution and the Bill of Rights we designed to get the government off the backs of the people -- all the people. Those great documents guarantee to us all the rights to personal and spiritual self-fulfillment. But that guarantee is not self-executing. As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such a twilight that we all must be most aware of the change in the air -- however slight -- lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.

  William O. Douglas

  Spiritual, Twilight, Rights

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• The Bill of Rights should contain the general principles of natural and civil liberty. It should be to a community what the eternal laws and obligations of morality are to the conscience. It should be unalterable by any human power.

  Thomas Paine

  Rights, Law, Community

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• Without amendments we would never even have had the Bill of Rights.

  Adrian Cronauer

  Rights, Bills, Amendments

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• I have said, and I believe, that potentially we have in this country a free enterprise system of radio and television which is superior to any other. But to achieve its promise, it must be both free and enterprising. There is no suggestion here that networks or individual stations should operate as philanthropies. But I can find nothing in the Bill of Rights or in the Communications Act which says that they must increase their net profits each year, lest the Republic collapse.

  Edward R. Murrow

  Country, Communication, Believe

  Radio-Television News Directors Association Convention Address, delivered 15 October 1958, Chicago, Illinois

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• The very purpose of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution is to protect minority rights against majority voters. Every court decision that strikes down discriminatory legislation, including past Supreme Court decisions, affirming the fundamental rights to marry the person you love, overrules a majority decision.

  David Boies

  Past, Rights, Decision

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• Some politicians are aware of the Bill of Rights. It seems that the opposition party is far more likely to invoke it, to wave it in the air, this is what we saw from a lot of republicans during the Clinton Administration, and we are seeing the same from Democrats under Bush.

  James Bovard

  Party, Rights, Air

  Interview with Aaron Zelman, jpfo.org.

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• As the interned American citizens of Japanese descent learned, the Bill of Rights provided them with little protection when it was needed.

  Glenn Reynolds

  Rights, Citizens, Littles

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• You don't know who the next group is that's unpopular. The Bill of Rights isn't for the prom queen. The bill of rights isn't for the high school quarterback. The Bill of Rights is for the least among us. The Bill of Rights is for minorities. The Bill of Rights is for those who have minority opinions. 

  Rand Paul

  Queens, School, Nsa

  Rand Paul's Speech on the PATRIOT Act and Government Surveillance, www.c-span.org. May 20, 2015.

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• The full impact of printing did not become possible until the adoption of the Bill of Rights in the United States with its guarantee of freedom of the press. A guarantee of freedom of the press in print was intended to further sanctify the printed word and to provide a rigid bulwark for the shelter of vested interests.

  Harold Innis

  Impact, Rights, Printed Word

  Harold Innis (1999). “The Bias of Communication”, p.56, University of Toronto Press

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• What good is a Bill of Rights that does not include the right to play, to wander, to explore, the right to stillness and solitude, to discovery and physical freedom?

  Edward Abbey

  Freedom, Rights, Discovery

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