Legislators Quotes - Page 8

• A legislator must know how to take advantage of even the defects of those he wants to govern. The art consists in making others work rather than in wearing oneself out.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Art, Power, Politics

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• Ideal legislators do not vote their interests.

  John Rawls

  Vote, Interest, Ideals

  John RAWLS (2009). “A Theory of Justice”, p.284, Harvard University Press

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• It is time that we labored for the happiness of the people. Legislators who are to bring light and order into the world must pursue their course with inexorable tread, fearless and unswerving as the sun.

  Louis Antoine de Saint-Just

  Light, Order, People

  Louis Antoine de Saint-Just's speech to the National Convention (December 27, 1792), as quoted in "Oeuvres Completes de Saint-Just", Volume 1, edited by Charles Vellay (p. 383), 1908.

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• The legislator commands the future; to be feeble will avail him nothing: it is for him to will what is good and to perpetuate it; to make man what he desires to be: for the laws, working upon the social body, which is inert in itself, can produce either virtue or crime, civilized customs or savagery.

  Louis Antoine de Saint-Just

  Men, Law, Desire

  "Discours sur la Constitution à donner à la France". Speech to the National Convention, April 24, 1793.

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• A good conscience is never lawless in the worst regulated state, and will provide those laws for itself which the neglect of legislators had forgotten to supply.

  Henry Fielding

  Law, Forgotten, Neglect

  Henry Fielding, Sir Walter Scott (1831). “The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling”, p.395

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• I will choose what enters me, what becomes flesh of my flesh. Without choice, no politics, no ethics lives. I am not your cornfield, not your uranium mine, not your calf for fattening, not your cow for milking. You may not use me as your factory. Priests and legislators do not hold shares in my womb or my mind. If I give it to you, I want it back. My life is a non-negotiable demand.

  Marge Piercy

  Giving, Choices, Mind

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• Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right... Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Mean, Men, Thinking

  Civil Disobedience (1849)

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• The legislator learns that when you talk a lot, you get in trouble. You have to listen a lot to make deals.

  Bob Woodward

  Literature, Trouble, Deals

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• I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable, but the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wisdom, Division, Politics

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

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• From dwarf tossing to drug taking: The legislator has no place in voluntary exchanges between consenting adults, as dodgy and as dangerous as these might be.

  Ilana Mercer

  Dwarves, Drug, Adults

  "In Defense of Jacko's Doctor". www.ilanamercer.com. November 11, 2011.

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• Custom is the law of one description of fools, and fashion of another; but the two parties often clash--for precedent is the legislator of the first, and novelty of the last. Custom, therefore, looks to things that are past, and fashion to things that are present.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Fashion, Party, Past

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.232

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• It has been sagaciously conjectured, that the artful legislator indulged the stubborn prejudices of his countrymen.

  Edward Gibbon

  Prejudice, Stubborn, Has Beens

  Edward Gibbon (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Edward Gibbon (Illustrated)”, p.2407, Delphi Classics

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• Nothing excites men's curiosity so much as Mystery, concealing things which they desire to know; and nothing so much increases curiosity as obstacles that interpose to prevent them from indulging in the gratification of their desires. Of this the Legislators and Hierophants took advantage, to attract the people to their sanctuaries, and to induce them to seek to obtain lessons from which they would perhaps have turned away with indifference if they had been pressed upon them.

  Albert Pike

  Men, People, Curiosity

  Albert Pike (2013). “Morals and Dogma”, p.338, Simon and Schuster

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• I've been here a long time working for women. These are long years and this is an unusual legislator.

  Eleanor Smeal

  Years, Long, Unusual

  Source: www.blogher.com

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• If Republican legislators succumb to their political addiction to compromise for the sake of getting something passed, no matter how odious, they'll be laying out the red carpet of inevitability for socialized care. Once government gets its foot in the door, more government control is unavoidable.

  David Limbaugh

  Government, Doors, Feet

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• Our nation, which possesses greater resources than any other, is rent, from center to circumference, with party strife, political intrigues, and sectional interest; our counselors are panic stricken, our legislators are astonished, and our senators are confounded.

  Joseph Smith, Jr.

  Party, Political, Panic

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• When all the mysticism is stripped away, the people who comprise the government (the legislators, administrators, judges, and policemen), are guided by human interests, desires, beliefs, notions, and prejudices, just like other people. They have neither superhuman wisdom nor extraordinary virtue.

  Hans F. Sennholz

  Government, People, Judging

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• The legislator is like the navigator of a ship on the high seas. He can steer the vessel on which he sails, but he cannot alter its construction, raise the wind, or stop the waves from swelling beneath his feet.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Wind, Sea, Feet

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• If a legislator is safe from competition, or if he represents groups with the same economic and political beliefs, he does not have to change his ideas or respond to the needs of the broader population. He can rest content with a mediocre, absentee performance knowing he will be returned to office. And as he is returned year after year the seniority system gives him immense control over people from other parts of the country whose views he need not heed at all.

  Edward Kennedy

  Country, Views, Years

  Edward Moore Kennedy (1968). “Decisions for a Decade: Policies and Programs for the 1970s”, New American Library of Canada

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• [T]here's a good reason to stay pessimistic about deficits as far as the eye can see. It's called the 'news' media. Legislators who want to get re-elected will clearly want to avoid any spending decision that will create bad national publicity, and our news media, the manufacturers of bad national publicity, will send crying victims down the assembly line at the slightest thought of a social spending cut or freeze. Exhibit A is Sen. Jim Bunning.

  L. Brent Bozell, Jr.

  Eye, Cutting, Media

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• Judges are not members of Congress, they're not state legislators, governors, nor presidents. Their job is not to pass laws, implement regulations, nor to make policy.

  Mike DeWine

  Jobs, Law, Judging

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• So what's the difference between republican and democratic forms of government? John Adams captured the essence of the difference when he said, 'You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe.' Nothing in our Constitution suggests that government is a grantor of rights. Instead, government is a protector of rights.

  Walter E. Williams

  Rights, Government, Law

  Walter E. Williams (2013). “Liberty Versus the Tyranny of Socialism: Controversial Essays”, p.110, Hoover Press

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• Supreme Court nominees should know that this exercise of judicial restraint is the key ingredient of being good judge, as the Constitution constrains judges every bit as much as it constrains we legislators, executives and citizens in their actions.

  Chuck Grassley

  Exercise, Keys, Judging

  "U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Judge Samuel Alito's Nomination to the Supreme Court". www.washingtonpost.com. January 9, 2006.

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• Judges are required by our democratic system not to overstep their positions to become policy makers or super-legislators.

  Chuck Grassley

  Judging, Makers, Democratic

  "U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Judge Samuel Alito's Nomination to the Supreme Court". www.washingtonpost.com. January 9, 2006.

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• I'll tell you what gives me hope. After the struggle for marriage equality, the LGBTQ community has built some very powerful organizations; in particular, I'm thinking of HRC (the Human Rights Campaign), GLAAD... but there are many, many others, too. Along with those organizations come some savvy and tested leaders who have come to understand not only how to change hearts and minds but also legislators and judges votes.

  Steven Petrow

  Powerful, Struggle, Heart

  "Civilities: We'll be talking about your reactions to the Orlando massacre for the full hour". Live chat, live.washingtonpost.com. June 21, 2016.

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