Bill Of Rights Quotes - Page 5

• There is danger that, if the Court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Suicide, Rights, Bills

  "Terminiello v. City of Chicago, 337 U.S. 1". Dissenting opinion, 1949.

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• The First Amendment freedom of religion is as important today as when the Bill of Rights was first written.

  Arlen Specter

  Rights, Important, Today

  "Joining Race, Specter Attacks the Right" by Richard L. Berke, www.nytimes.com. 1995.

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• Revealingly, the central function of the Constitution as law--the supreme law--was to impose limitations not on the behavior of ordinary citizens but on the federal government. The government, and those who ran it, were not placed outside the law, but expressly targeted by it. Indeed, the Bill of Rights is little more than a description of the lines that the most powerful political officials are barred from crossing, even if they have the power to do so and even when the majority of citizens might wish them to do so.

  Glenn Greenwald

  Powerful, Law, Rights

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• To be patriotic is to be able to question government policy in times of crisis. To be patriotic is to stand up for the Bill of Rights and the Constitution in times of uncertainty and insecurity. To be patriotic is to speak up against the powerful in defense of the weak and the voiceless. To be patriotic is to be willing to pay the price to preserve our freedoms, dignity, and rights. To be patriotic is to challenge the abuses of the PATRIOT Act.

  Sami Al-Arian

  Freedom, Powerful, Patriotic

  "Dr. Sami Al-Arian vs Big Brother's 'Ministry of Justice'" by Eileen Fleming, bigthink.com. 2017.

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• This might explain why Obama gave billions to Wall Street crooks, and dragged the Iraq and Afghan wars on and on.
  Happily for the busy lunatics who rule over us, we are permanently the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing... We have ceased to be a nation under law but instead a homeland where the withered Bill of Rights, like a dead trumpet vine, clings to our pseudo-Roman columns.

  Gore Vidal

  Wall, War, Rights

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• The Sherman Act is similar in the economics sphere to the Bill of Rights in the personal sphere.

  Harold H. Greene

  Rights, Spheres, Bills

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• If I look back, the one thing that I am proud of is that for once I as a political leader, kept every promise I made within one term of office. We achieved a new constitution; we achieved a new bill of rights, which encapsulated this vision of justice for all.

  Frederik Willem de Klerk

  Justice, Office, Leader

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• Meantime the education of the general mind never stops. The reveries of the true and simple are prophetic. What the tender poeticyouth dreams, and prays, and paints today, but shuns the ridicule of saying aloud, shall presently be the resolutions of public bodies, then shall be carried as grievance and bill of rights through conflict and war, and then shall be triumphant law and establishment for a hundred years, until it gives place, in turn, to new prayers and pictures.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Dream, Prayer, War

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.560, Library of America

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• The Bill of Rights existed long before President Obama was elected, and as long as I’m a U.S. Senator, I will fight to protect the basic rights and liberties that belong to all of us as American citizens.

  Rand Paul

  Fighting, Rights, Long

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• The government was set to protect man from criminals-and the constitution was written to protect man from the government. The Bill of Rights was not directed at private citizens, but against the government-as an explicit declaration that individual rights supersede any public or social power.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Rights, Criminals

  Ayn Rand (1964). “The Virtue of Selfishness”, p.92, Penguin

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• The U.S. Bill of Rights is being steadily eroded, with two million telephone calls tapped, 30 million workers under electronic surveillance, and, says the author, countless Americans harassed by a government that wages spurious wars against drugs and terrorism.

  Gore Vidal

  War, Rights, Government

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• In these sacred documents are embodied eternal principles that no man, group of men, or nation has the right to withhold from others. Here is our basis for freedom of individual achievement. Our Constitution with its Bill of Rights guarantees to all our people the greatest freedom ever enjoyed by the people of any great nation. This system guarantees freedom of individual enterprise, freedom to own property, freedom to start one's own business and to operate it according to one's own judgment so long as the enterprise is honorable.

  Ezra Taft Benson

  Men, Rights, Long

  Ezra Taft Benson (1974). “God, family, country: our three great loyalties”

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• I have a recurring fantasy that one more article has been added to the Bill of Rights: the right to free access to imagination.

  Azar Nafisi

  Rights, Imagination, Bills

  Azar Nafisi (2015). “Reading Lolita in Tehran”, p.337, Penguin UK

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• The only guarantee of the Bill of Rights which continues to have any force and effect is the one prohibiting quartering troops on citizens in time of peace. All the rest have been disposed of by judicial interpretation and legislative whittling.

  H. L. Mencken

  Rights, Bills, Troops

  H.L. Mencken (2013). “Minority Report”, p.254, Knopf

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• There was not a member of the Constitutional Convention who had the least objection to what is contended for by the advocates for a Bill of Rights and trial by jury.

  George Washington

  Rights, Law, Trials

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1847). “pt. III. Private letters from the time Washington resigned his commission as commander-in-chief of the Army to that of his inauguration as president of the United States: December, 1783-April, 1789”, p.357

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• Asset forfeiture is a mockery of the Bill of Rights. There is no presumption of innocence, no need to prove you guilty (or even charge you with a crime), no right to a jury trial, no right to confront your accuser, no right to a court-appointed attorney (even if the government has just stolen all your money), and no right to compensation for the property that's been taken.

  Harry Browne

  Taken, Rights, Government

  Harry Browne (2000). “The Great Libertarian Offer”, Liam Works

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• Let no man think we can deny civil liberty to others and retain it for ourselves. When zealous agents of the Government arrest suspected "radicals" without warrant, hold them without prompt trial, deny them access to counsel and admission of bail....we have shorn the Bill of Rights of its sanctity.

  Robert M. La Follette, Sr.

  Men, Thinking, Rights

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• [The Bill of Rights is] designed to protect individuals and minorities against the tyranny of the majority, but it's also designed to protect the people against bureaucracy, against the government.

  Laurence Tribe

  Rights, Government, People

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• Some of the folks on both sides might be sincere, but it does seem as if it is only the opposition that cares about the Bill of Rights most of the time.

  James Bovard

  Rights, Two Sides, Doe

  "Talkin' to America" with Aaron Zelman, jpfo.org.

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• We may be thankful that frightened civil authorities ... have not managed to eradicate from the country the tradition of the possession and use of firearms, that profound and almost instinctive tradition of Americans. Luckily for us, our tradition of bearing arms has not gone from the country, the tradition is so deep and so dear to us that it is one of the most treasured parts of the Bill of Rights - the right of all Americans to bear arms, with the implication that they will know how to use them.

  John Steinbeck

  Country, Rights, America

  John Steinbeck (2009). “Bombs Away: The Story of a Bomber Team”, p.31, Penguin

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• The right to be a journalist is part of the Bill of Rights.

  John C. Dvorak

  Rights, Politics, Bills

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• The state's interest in effective crime-fighting should never vitiate the citizens' Bill of Rights.

  John Ashcroft

  Fighting, Rights, Citizens

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• The Bill of Rights decoupled religion from the state, in part because so many religions were steeped in an absolutist frame of mind - each convinced that it alone had a monopoly on the truth and therefore eager for the state to impose this truth on others.

  Carl Sagan

  Rights, Mind, Church

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.552, Ballantine Books

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• We set up government by consent of the governed, and the Bill of Rights denies those in power any legal opportunity to coerce that consent. Authority here is to be controlled by public opinion, not public opinion by authority.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Opportunity, Rights, Government

  "West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette 319 U.S. 641". Judicial opinion, 1943.

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• If you believe in the values of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, if you're willing to work hard and play by the rules, you are part of our family. And we're proud to be with you.

  William J. Clinton

  Believe, Hard Work, Rights

  Clinton, William J. (1997). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 1995”, p.1416, Best Books on

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