Legislators Quotes - Page 3

• Energy and environmental regulation, transportation, and broadband policy all benefit when legislators have a basic grounding in the technical concepts behind business models, products, and innovation.

  John Sununu

  Innovation, Environmental, Benefits

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• Punishment is the last and the least effective instrument in the hands of the legislator for the prevention of crime.

  John Ruskin

  Hands, Punishment, Prevention

  "Notes on the General Principles of Employment for the Destitute and Criminal Classes". Book by John Ruskin, 1868.

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• If you force legislators to balance, at the end of the day, if it has to be balanced, then they step up and they become legislators and can find out where to cut.

  Rand Paul

  Cutting, Balance, The End Of The Day

  "Rand Paul, Rep. Mike Pence and David Stockman". "This Week" with Christiane Amanpour, abcnews.go.com. November 7, 2010.

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• Legislators have a formal set of responsibilities to work together, but there's no hierarchy.

  Barney Frank

  Responsibility, Working Together, Hierarchy

  Interview with Jason Zengerle, nymag.com. April 15, 2012.

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• Every single dollar spent lobbying a legislator on behalf of oil and gas is a toxic dollar that undermines public health and safety laws that protect Americans. That's contamination of the political system.

  Josh Fox

  Law, Oil, Safety

  "Josh Fox: Activist and filmmaker" by Gerri Miller, www.mnn.com. May 2, 2012.

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• When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.

  Edmund Burke

  People, Leader, Auctions

  Edmund Burke (1790). “Reflections on the Revolution in France: And on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event. In a Letter Intended to Have Been Sent to a Gentleman in Paris”, p.353

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• The Bible carries with it the history of the creation, the fall and redemption of man, and discloses to him, in the infant born at Bethlehem, the Legislator and Savior of the world.

  John Quincy Adams

  Fall, Men, Redemption

  Samuel Hanson Cox, Thomas Chalmers, Nathanael Emmons, John Quincy Adams (1853). “Interviews: memorable and useful”, p.272

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• Legislators, priests, philosophers, writers, ans scientists have striven to show that the subordinate position of woman is willed in heaven and advantageous on earth.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Heaven, Earth, Philosopher

  Simone de Beauvoir (1953). “The second sex”, Vintage

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• It is unthinkable to allow complete strangers, whether individually or collectively as state legislators or others in government, to make such personal decisions for someone else.

  Sarah Weddington

  Government, Abortion, Decision

  Sarah Ragle Weddington (1993). “A question of choice”, Penguin Group USA

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• Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Moving, Inspiration, Writing

  A Defence of Poetry (written 1821) See Auden 22; Auden 39; Andrew Fletcher 1; Samuel Johnson 22; Twain 104

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• Before the nineteen-seventies, most Republicans in Washington accepted the institutions of the welfare state, and most Democrats agreed with the logic of the Cold War. Despite the passions over various issues, government functioned pretty well. Legislators routinely crossed party lines when they voted, and when they drank; filibusters in the Senate were reserved for the biggest bills; think tanks produced independent research, not partisan talking points. The "D." or "R." after a politician's name did not tell you what he thought about everything, or everything you thought about him.

  George Packer

  War, Party, Independent

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• I appeal to the contemptible speech made lately by Sir Robert Peel to an applauding House of Commons. 'Orders of merit,' said he, 'were the proper rewards of the military' (the desolators of the world in all ages). 'Men of science are better left to the applause of their own hearts.' Most learned Legislator! Most liberal cotton-spinner! Was your title the proper reward of military prowess? Pity you hold not the dungeon-keys of an English Inquisition! Perhaps Science, like creeds, would flourish best under a little persecution.

  John Joseph Griffin

  Military, Heart, Science

  John Joseph Griffin (1834). “Chemical Recreations: A Series of Amusing and Instructive Experiments, which May be Performed with Ease, Safety, Success, and Economy ; to which is Added, The Romance of Chemistry : an Inquiry Into the Fallacies of the Prevailing Theory of Chemistry : with a New Theory and a New Nomenclature”, p.232

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• The onset of more severe climate impacts overseas may also open up temporary opportunities, or 'policy windows.' These would allow legislators the licence to take specific bold actions which they ordinarily believe would not otherwise be possible or politically acceptable...In effect, envisaged solutions can become rapidly translated into practical options for action following a major disaster or near-miss.

  John Beddington

  Believe, Opportunity, Impact

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• As a Chinese American legislator, I applaud the RNC's Growth and Opportunity Project. Engaging Asian American and Pacific Islander communities about Republican principles is a worthwhile effort. I thank Chairman Priebus and Co-Chairman Day for making this a priority. We need to ensure our message of growth and opportunity is being heard in all communities throughout this nation, and I am proud to be a part of this effort.

  Kimberly Yee

  Opportunity, Effort, Community

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• The choice of euthanasia becomes more serious when it takes the form of a murder committed by others on a person who has in no way requested it and who has never consented to it. The height of arbitrariness and injustice is reached when certain people, such as physicians or legislators, arrogate to themselves the power to decide who ought to live and who ought to die.

  Pope John Paul II

  People, Choices, Abortion

  Pope John Paul II (1996). “The Encyclicals of John Paul II”, Our Sunday Visitor (IN)

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• There has been opposition to experimenting on animals for a long time. This opposition has made little headway because experimenters, backed by commercial firms that profit by supplying laboratory animals and equipment, have been able to convince legislators and the public that opposition comes from uninformed fanatics who consider the interests of animals more important than the interests of human beings.

  Peter Singer

  Animal, Long, Important

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• Trade and commerce, if they were not made of Indian rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Philosophy, Government, Political

  Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.679, Modern Library

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• When is conduct a crime, and when is a crime not a crime? When "Somebody Up There" - a monarch, a dictator, a Pope, a legislator - so decrees.

  Jessica Mitford

  Government, Prison, Dictator

  Jessica Mitford (1973). “Kind and usual punishment: the prison business”, Not Avail

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• The Universal Declaration... as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations...it not only crystallizes the political thought of our times on these matters, but it has also influenced the thinking of legislators all over the world.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  Thinking, Achievement, Political

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• Statistical science is indispensable to modern statesmanship. In legislation as in physical science it is beginning to be understood that we can control terrestrial forces only by obeying their laws. The legislator must formulate in his statutes not only the national will, but also those great laws of social life revealed by statistics.

  James A. Garfield

  Science, Government, Law

  Garfield, James A. (1882). “The works of James Abram Garfield. Volume 1”, p.455, Best Books on

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• I don't view myself as a victim of gun violence. I view myself as a victim of a maniac who happened to use a gun as a tool, and I view myself as a victim of the legislators at the time who left me defenseless.

  Suzanna Hupp

  Gun, Views, Tools

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• In the formation of our constitution the wisdom of all ages is collected-the legislators of antiquity are consulted, as well as the opinions and interests of the millions who are concerned. It short, it is an empire of reason.

  Noah Webster

  Age, Empires, Opinion

  Noah Webster (1787). “An Examination Into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution Proposed by the Late Convention Held at Philadelphia: With Answers to the Principal Objections that Have Been Raised Against the System”, p.6

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• Legislators invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Hands, Mind

  Thomas Jefferson, Jean M. Yarbrough (1963). “The Essential Jefferson”, p.154, Hackett Publishing

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• If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as much of it as you please: But if it means the liberty of affronting, calumniating and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it, whenever our legislators shall please so to alter the law and shall chearfully consent to exchange my liberty of abusing others for the privilege of not being abused myself.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Mean, Political Opinions, Law

  Benjamin Franklin, William Temple Franklin (1818). “Memoirs of the life and writings of Benjamin Franklin ...”, p.304, Printed for H. Colborn

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• I was a Georgia state legislator for a great many years

  Julian Bond

  Years, Georgia, Great Men

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