Constitution Quotes - Page 40

• The highest laws of the land (America) are not only the constitution and constitutional laws, but also contracts.

  Hannah

  Law, Land, America

  4 Copy quote

• The Constitution cannot protect us unless we protect the Constitution.

  Thomas Sowell

  Protect

  "Political Judges". jewishworldreview.com. November 9, 2010.

  35 Copy quote

  Show source

• The power under the Constitution will always be in the people.

  George Washington

  People

  George Washington (1855). “Maxims of Washington: Political, Social, Moral, and Religious”, p.74

  40 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Law, Hands, Mind

  Thomas Jefferson (1998). “Thomas Jefferson: His Words and Vision”, p.18, Peter Pauper Press, Inc.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• ...I am exceedingly anxious that this Union, the Constitution, and the liberties of the people shall be perpetuated in accordance with the original idea for which that struggle was made, and I shall be most happy indeed if I shall be an humble instrument in the hands of the Almighty, and of this, his almost chosen people, for perpetuating the object of that great struggle.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Struggle, Humble, Hands

  Abraham Lincoln (2008). “The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln”, p.236, Wildside Press LLC

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have lived among negroes, all my life, and I am for this Government with slavery under the Constitution as it is. I am for the Government of my fathers with negroes. I am for it without negroes. Before I would see this Government destroyed I would send every negro back to Africa, disintegrated and blotted out of space

  Andrew Johnson

  Father, Government, Space

  Speech in Indianapolis, Indiana, February 26, 1863.

  141 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm also very much aware that it is you who brought democracy to Chile, you set up a constitution suitable for democracy, you put it into effect, elections were held, and then, in accordance with the result, you stepped down.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Democracy, Conservative, Election

  "Thatcher visits her old friend Pinochet", www.theguardian.com. March 26, 1999.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• He, who for an ordinary cause, resigns the fate of his patient to mercury, is a vile enemy to the sick; and, if he is tolerably popular, will, in one successful season, have paved the way for the business of life, for he has enough to do, ever afterward, to stop the mercurial breach of the constitutions of his dilapidated patients. He has thrown himself in fearful proximity to death, and has now to fight him at arm's length as long as the patient maintains a miserable existence.

  Nathaniel Chapman

  Fighting, Fate, Successful

  9 Copy quote

• The theory of medicine, therefore, presents what is useful in thought, but does not indicate how it is to be applied in practice-the mode of operation of these principles. The theory, when mastered, gives us a certain kind of knowledge. Thus we say, for example, there are three forms of fevers and nine constitutions. The practice of medicine is not the work which the physician carries out, but is that branch of medical knowledge which, when acquired, enables one to form an opinion upon which to base the proper plan of treatment.

  Avicenna

  Science, Medical Knowledge, Medicine

  Avicenna (1999). “The Canon of Medicine (al-Qānūn Fī'l-ṭibb)”, Abjad Book Designers & Builders

  143 Copy quote

  Show source

• We hold that the Constitution does not forbid the states minor intrusions into an individual's body under stringently limited conditions.

  William J. Brennan

  Freedom, Political, Doe

  7 Copy quote

• A mission statement is not something you write overnight... But fundamentally, your mission statement becomes your constitution, the solid expression of your vision and values. It becomes the criterion by which you measure everything else in your life.

  Stephen Covey

  Life, Change, Writing

  Stephen R. Covey (2015). “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, p.159, Mango Media Inc.

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• Obama's immigration legacy will be the juxtaposition of his serial insistence that he was not a king or an emperor, and could not contravene the Constitution by granting a blanket amnesty, with his efforts to do just that when it was no longer politically inexpedient. I don't think a president has ever quite so habitually warned the country of the dangers that would soon emanate from himself.

  Victor Davis Hanson

  Country, Kings, Thinking

  5 Copy quote

• [E]very act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Men, People, Acting

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Quentin P. Taylor, John Jay (1998). “The Essential Federalist: A New Reading of the Federalist Papers”, p.145, Rowman & Littlefield

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Constitution of the United States knows no distinction between citizens on account of color. Neither does it know any difference between a citizen of a state and a citizen of the United States.

  Frederick Douglass

  Color, Differences, Democracy

  Frederick Douglass (2013). “The Magazine Articles of Frederick Douglass”, p.9, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Today, I am an inquisitor. I shall not sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.

  Barbara Jordan

  Democracy, Today, Destruction

  Barbara Jordan, Shelby Hearon (1979). “Barbara Jordan, a self-portrait”, Doubleday Books

  126 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our Constitution is the envy of the world, as it should be for it is the grand design of the finest nation on earth.

  Thurgood Marshall

  Envy, Design, Democracy

  20 Copy quote

• The Constitution is an equally forthright piece of work and quite succinct ... giving the complete operating instructions for a nation of 250 million people. The manual for a Toyota Camry, which only seats five, is four times as long.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Long, People, Giving

  P.J. O'Rourke (2015). “Thrown Under the Omnibus”, p.213, Atlantic Books Ltd

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The situation of the general government, if it can be called a government, is shaken to its foundation, and liable to be overturned by every blast.

  George Washington

  Government, Foundation, Blast

  George Washington (1858). “The Writings: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts : with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.257

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If the General Government should be left dependent on the State Legislatures, it would be happy for us if we had never met in this room.

  John Dickinson

  Government, Rooms, Would Be

  30 Copy quote

• Eternal vigilance must be maintained to guard against those who seek to stifle ideas, establish a narrow orthodoxy, and divide our nation along arbitrary lines of race, ethnicity, and religious belief or non-belief.

  Jesse Ventura

  Religious, Ethnicity, Ideas

  Jesse Ventura (2008). “Don't Start the Revolution Without Me!: From the Minnesota Governor's Mansion to the Baja Outback : Reflections and Revisionings”, Skyhorse Publishing Company Incorporated

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Today, as never before, the issue is clearly defined-liberty and freedom of choice, or oppression and subjugation for the individual and for nations.

  David O. McKay

  Issues, Choices, Liberty

  5 Copy quote

• May the Lord be with us at all times, under all circumstances; may he bring into our lives a burning desire to uphold the Constitution, a living faith in its inspired origin, that we may always be found among those who shall support it to the last breath.

  J. Reuben Clark

  Support, Desire, Burning

  11 Copy quote

• Eighteen months ago, when first I stood before you I called attention, as earnestly and seriously as I knew how, to what looked to me to be the dangers that were ahead, and I urged you at that time to practice the old virtues of thrift, of honesty, of truthfulness, of industry, and so on through the list of those I named. All that I said then I say again.

  J. Reuben Clark

  Honesty, Practice, Attention

  11 Copy quote

• One year ago, on this occasion, I called your attention to the abuses that had crept into the distribution of our public funds, and I urged you and pleaded with you that, so far as the Church and its membership were concerned, we do not soil our hands with the bounteous outpouring of funds which the government was giving unto us. I renew that plea now. My brethren and sisters, for the sake of the government which we love, for the sake of the government which we believe was divinely inspired, be honest with it. Be honest, just ordinarily gold honest. That is all I ask.

  J. Reuben Clark

  Believe, Hands, Years

  4 Copy quote

• Do you know that all of the money that we are spending, that the government is spending, must come from you? The government has no great pile of gold to which it can go to get what it gives you. The government has not one cent that it does not take from your pockets. Do not imagine, do not believe, do not go on the theory that you are not to pay this bill, unless the fundamentals of our government are to be overturned.

  J. Reuben Clark

  Believe, Government, Giving

  33 Copy quote