Legislature Quotes

• No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.

  Mark Twain

  Life, Trust, Freedom

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• No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to fly high. No government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams. You should never agree to surrender your dreams.

  Jesse Jackson

  Dream, Government, Goal

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• When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional right to free speech, it acts lawlessly; and the citizen can take matters into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all.

  William O. Douglas

  Exercise, Rights, Hands

  "Poulos v. New Hampshire, 345 U.S. 395". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. April 27, 1953.

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• [I]t is more convenient to prevent the passage of a law, than to declare it void after it has passed.

  James Madison

  Law, Void, Congress

  James Madison (1904). “The Writings of James Madison: 1787-1790”

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• The greatest single virtue of a strong legislature is not what it can do, but what it can prevent.

  J. William Fulbright

  Strong, Virtue, Can Do

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• The people can never willfully betray their own interests: But they may possibly be betrayed by the representatives of the people; and the danger will be evidently greater where the whole legislative trust is lodged in the hands of one body of men, than where the concurrence of separate and dissimilar bodies is required in every public act.

  James Madison

  Men, Hands, People

  James Madison, John Jay (1847). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.255

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• The members of the legislative department . . . are numerous. They are distributed and dwell among the people at large. Their connections of blood, of friendship, and of acquaintance embrace a great proportion of the most influential part of the society . . . they are more immediately the confidential guardians of their rights and liberties.

  James Madison

  Blood, Rights, People

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2015). “The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution”, p.249, Coventry House Publishing

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• I went West and took part in the strike of the machinists - the Southern Pacific Railroad, the corporation that swung California by its golden tail, that controlled its legislature, its farmers, its preachers, its workers.

  Mother Jones

  California, Southern, Railroads

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• Moreover, as we live in an era of the ascendancy of democracy and human rights, we must see that Taiwan has been a vibrant democracy with a democratically elected president and legislature.

  Nick Lampson

  Rights, Democracy, President

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• But, you know, all I can do is submit my budget and then make the case to the Legislature to act.

  George Pataki

  Cases, Submit, Knows

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• The stopping of the Judicial courts, had been blended, in the minds of some people, with the redress of grievances considered only as a mode of awakening the attention of the legislature.

  George Minot

  People, Mind, Stopping

  George Richards Minot (1810). “The History of the Insurrections in Massachusetts: In the Year Seventeen Hundred and Eighty Six. And the Rebellion Consequent Thereon”, p.39, Boston : J.W. Burditt

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• But Connecticut and Rhode Island have originally realized the most perfect polity as to a legislature.

  Ezra Stiles

  Rhode Island, Islands, Perfect

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• If laws acting upon private interests can not always be avoided, they should be confined within the narrowest limits, and left wherever possible to the legislatures of the States.

  Martin Van Buren

  Law, Acting, Limits

  United States. President (1837-1841 : Van Buren), Martin Van Buren (1838). “Message from the President of the United States to the Two Houses of Congress: At the Commencement of the Third Session of the Twenty-fifth Congress”, p.13

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• Gov. Jeb Bush and the Florida Legislature's strong commitment to increase access to Advanced Placement courses continues to pay off.

  Gaston Caperton

  Strong, Commitment, Florida

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• Twice the Republicans in the California legislature tried to block my seating because of my trips to Hanoi.

  Tom Hayden

  Block, California, Republican

  Tom Hayden (2008). “Writings For A Democratic Society: The Tom Hayden Reader”, City Lights Publishers

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• I had concluded when I was the prosecutor that I would vote against the death penalty if I were in the legislature but that I could ask for it when I was satisfied as to guilt.

  Janet Reno

  Guilt, Death Penalty, Vote

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• I see a trend here where the President seems to think his job is to count votes and then try to make a deal That's what we in legislatures do. Mr. Obama's job is to travel the country, fight for the values that he cares about.

  Anthony Weiner

  Country, Travel, Jobs

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• To speak of morals in art is to speak of legislature in sex. Art is the sex of the imagination.

  George Jean Nathan

  Art, Sex, Imagination

  George Jean Nathan (1972). “The World in Falseface”, p.7, Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press

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• How can you look at the Texas legislature and still believe in intelligent design?

  Kinky Friedman

  Believe, Intelligent, Texas

  Kinky Friedman (2007). “You Can Lead a Politician to Water, But You Can't Make Him Think: Ten Commandments for Texas Politics”, p.42, Simon and Schuster

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• The school-room sends men to the Legislature, to the bench, and the executive office. The bar-room sends them to the scaffold and hell.

  Thomas Jordan Jarvis

  School, Men, Office

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• Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature.

  Kin Hubbard

  Inspiration, Men, Innocent Man

  Kin Hubbard, David S. Hawes (1995). “The Best of Kin Hubbard: Abe Martin's Sayings and Wisecracks, Abe's Neighbors, His Almanack, Comic Drawings”, p.14, Indiana University Press

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• Many attempts had been made by colonial legislatures to cut off or to tax the importation of slaves.

  Albert Bushnell Hart

  Cutting, Slave, Made

  Albert Bushnell Hart, Ph.D. (1909). “Epochs of American History”

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• They reality is that we have 70% of our voters use a punch card system that I tried to change and that bipartisan resistance in the legislature stopped.

  Ken Blackwell

  Reality, Cards, Use

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• The legislature's job is to write law. It's the executive branch's job to interpret law.

  George W. Bush

  Jobs, Writing, Law

  "The Gaffes of George W. Bush" by William Saletan, Avi Zenilman, www.slate.com. October 8, 2003.

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• Safety on our highways has improved significantly, with the help of the Legislature and the media.

  Jane D. Hull

  Media, Safety, Helping

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