Constitution famous quotes
Last updated: Sep 5, 2024
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The only way out of the current crisis is to amend the Constitution.
-- Abhisit Vejjajiva -
The Union, and the Constitution, are the picture of silver, subsequently framed around it. The picture was not made to conceal or destroy the apple, but to adorn and preserve it. The picture was made for the apple-not the apple for the picture.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
Study the Constitution. Let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislatures, and enforced in courts of justice.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
One of the things I learned in law school is that there's nothing wrong or undesirable or dishonorable or destructive about amending the Constitution.
-- Adrian Cronauer -
They tried to say that being gay is a sin, and I said that adultery is a sin. Adultery is responsible for breaking up more marriages, but do we put that in the Constitution? It’s absurd.
-- Al Sharpton -
There is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution. There's a prohibition against taking it away.
-- Alberto Gonzales -
The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.
-- Alexander Hamilton -
Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things.
-- Alexander Hamilton -
[T]he present Constitution is the standard to which we are to cling. Under its banners, bona fide must we combat our political foes - rejecting all changes but through the channel itself provides for amendments.
-- Alexander Hamilton -
Constitutions of civil government are not to be framed upon a calculation of existing exigencies, but upon a combination of these with the probable exigencies of ages, according to the natural and tried course of human affairs. Nothing, therefore, can be more fallacious than to infer the extent of any power, proper to be lodged in the national government, from an estimate of its immediate necessities.
-- Alexander Hamilton -
There is no position which depends on clearer principles than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid.
-- Alexander Hamilton -
For my part, I sincerely esteem the Constitution, a system which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests.
-- Alexander Hamilton -
A treaty cannot be made which alters the Constitution of the country, or which infringes and express exceptions to the power of the Constitution.
-- Alexander Hamilton -
The powers contained in a constitution...ought to be construed liberally in advancement of the public good.
-- Alexander Hamilton -
The Constitution and the laws are supreme and the Union indissoluble.
-- Andrew Jackson -
Whenever you hear a man prating about the Constitution, spot him as a traitor
-- Andrew Johnson -
I am sworn to uphold the Constitution as Andy Johnson understands it and interprets it.
-- Andrew Johnson -
Well for one, the 13th amendment to the constitution of the US which abolished slavery - did not abolish slavery for those convicted of a crime.
-- Angela Davis -
The substance of the constitution is preserved. That is a fact.
-- Angela Merkel -
The Constitution doesn't belong to a bunch of judges and lawyers. It belongs to you.
-- Anthony Kennedy -
As the Constitution endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom.
-- Anthony Kennedy -
It is difficult to maintain the illusion that we are interpreting a Constitution, rather than inventing one.
-- Antonin Scalia -
A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state.
-- Aristotle -
Any change of government which has to be introduced should be one which men, starting from their existing constitutions, will be both willing and able to adopt, since there is quite as much trouble in the reformation of an old constitution as in the establishment of a new one, just as to unlearn is as hard as to learn.
-- Aristotle -
No: I am not tired. I have a curious constitution. I never remember feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely." ~ Sherlock Holmes
-- Arthur Conan Doyle -
The basic guarantees of our Constitution are warrants for the here and now, and unless there is an overwhelmingly compelling reason, they are to be promptly fulfilled.
-- Arthur Goldberg -
The concept of neutrality can lead to a brooding and pervasive devotion to the secular and a passive, or even active, hostility to the religious. Such results are not only not compelled by the Constitution, but, it seems to me, are prohibited by it.
-- Arthur Goldberg -
Constitution is not a mere lawyers document, it is a vehicle of Life, and its spirit is always the spirit of Age.
-- B. R. Ambedkar -
If I find the constitution being misused, I shall be the first to burn it.
-- B. R. Ambedkar -
Our founders made it extraordinarily difficult to amend the Constitution.
-- Barack Obama -
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 -
My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminuation, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution. It is reason and not passion which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision.
-- Barbara Jordan -
The constitution is an instrument, above all, for LIMITING the functions of government.
-- Barry Goldwater -
The great generalities of the constitution have a content and a significance that vary from age to age.
-- Benjamin Cardozo -
I consent Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best.
-- Benjamin Franklin -
That by 1774 the final crisis of the constitution, brought on by political and social corruption, had been reached was, to most informed colonists, evident; ...
-- Bernard Bailyn -
The U.S. constitution is an extraordinary document. In my view, it should not be amended often.
-- Bernie Sanders -
Shahidullah Shahid said there is nothing Islamic in Pakistan’s constitution. He clearly can’t read. The truth is there is nothing Islamic in the TTP.
-- Bilawal Bhutto Zardari -
The property qualifications for federal office that the framers of the Constitution expressly chose to exclude for demonstrating an unseemly "veneration of wealth " are now de facto in force and higher than the Founding Fathers could have imagined.
-- Bill Moyers -
The nature of our constitution makes eloquence more useful and more necessary in this country than in any other in Europe.
-- Bill Vaughan -
A lot of Americans have some view of the Constitution as just this thing that was handed down [intact]. But it really was the result of months and months of wrangling and disputation and ultimately compromise. That's where the brilliance of the American system is -- it's always been built on compromise.
-- Bill Vaughan -
When it is not necessary to amend the Constitution, it is necessary not to amend the Constitution.
-- Bill Vaughan -
There is no right by the federal or state constitution to manual recounts. There is no law that says that you must count dimpled ballots, constitutional or otherwise.
-- Bill Vaughan -
The framers of our Constitution meant we were to have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.
-- Billy Graham -
We are a nation conceived, born and nurtured by faith... Our faith is declared in our Constitution, on our currency and in our lives.
-- Bob Dole -
The homosexual agenda represents a clear and present danger to virtually every fundamental right given to us by our Creator and enshrined for us in our Constitution.
-- Bryan Fischer -
The U.S. Constitution is the basic framework for the greatest democracy on Earth. Some of my colleagues find it easy to amend it. I don't.
-- Byron Dorgan -
The right of petition, I have said, was not conferred on the People by the Constitution, but was a pre-existing right, reserved by the People out of the grants of power made to Congress.
-- Caleb Cushing -
I maintain that the House is bound by the Constitution to receive the petitions; after which, it will take such method of deciding upon them as reason and principle shall dictate.
-- Caleb Cushing -
The Constitution is the sole source and guaranty of national freedom.
-- Calvin Coolidge -
The Constitution is a document that should only be amended with great caution.
-- Carl Levin -
Women deserve the same permanent rights and explicit protections given men in the Constitution.
-- Carolyn Maloney -
While men's rights are guaranteed by specific language in the Constitution, women's equal rights aren't mentioned.
-- Carolyn Maloney -
The only way to ensure equality for women is to clearly declare it in our Constitution.
-- Carolyn Maloney -
Our society cannot progress while our constitution stands still.
-- Charles Edison -
The Constitution is what the judges say it is.
-- Charles Evans Hughes -
We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is, and the judiciary is the safeguard of our property and our liberty and our property under the Constitution.
-- Charles Evans Hughes -
So too, in forming a constitution, or in enacting rules of procedure, or making canons, the people do not merely passively assent, but actively cooperate. They have, in all these matters, the same authority as the clergy.
-- Charles Hodge -
Make sure the government treats others the same as you would want the government to treat you. ...Once you consent to the government ignoring the Constitution, you deny yourself the protection of the Constitution.
-- Charley Reese -
We also intend to deal with the issue of incorporating basic human rights into our new constitution.
-- Chen Shui-bian -
Unfortunately, people are re-interpreting the Constitution as a living document, and it's not. It's a solid-based document and it shouldn't be played with.
-- Chuck Norris -
My constitution was destroyed long ago; now I am living under the bylaws.
-- Clarence Darrow -
I prefer a man who will burn the flag and then wrap himself in the constitution to a man who will burn the constitution and then wrap himself in the flag.
-- Craig Washington -
The fact that the Constitution is sufficiently open-ended to infuriate all Americans almost equally is part of its enduring genius.
-- Dahlia Lithwick -
Nothing in the constitutions of Western states requires them to get involved in every foreign conflict.
-- Daniel Pipes -
I`ve passed on a number of bills. I`ve studied the Constitution myself. I am reasonably well educated.
-- Dianne Feinstein -
No treaty or international agreement can contravene the Constitution.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower -
Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, of course, lays out the delegated, enumerated, and therefore limited powers of Congress. Only through a deliberate misreading of the general welfare and commerce clauses of the Constitution has the federal government been allowed to overreach its authority and extend its tendrils into every corner of civil society.
-- Ed Crane -
The Constitution is a 200-year-old parchment, simply because we digitize the words should not suggest their meanings change.
-- Ed Markey -
The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.
-- Edward Gibbon -
The Constitution does not just protect those whose views we share; it also protects those with whose views we disagree.
-- Edward Kennedy -
I am exceedingly distressed at the proceedings of the Convention-being ... almost sure, they will ... lay the foundation of a Civil War.
-- Elbridge Gerry -
If I am confirmed, I will commit to show Heller and the principles articulated in it the full measure of respect that is due to all constitution decisions of the court.
-- Elena Kagan -
The framers of the Constitution realized that . . . there needed to be some guardian of the sober second thought, and so they created the Senate to fulfill that high and vitally important duty.
-- Elihu Root -
Preventing terrorist attacks is of the highest important, but trashing the Constitution is not the right way to do it.
-- Eliot Engel -
You may consider me presumptuous, gentlemen, but I claim to be a citizen of the United States, with all the qualifications of a voter. I can read the Constitution, I am possessed of two hundred and fifty dollars, and the last time I looked in the old family Bible I found I was over twenty-one years of age.
-- Elizabeth Cady Stanton -
The Constitution is like my old blue dress ... it doesn't fit anymore.
-- Ellen Tauscher -
Our constitution mentions religion just twice, and both times the word 'no' are attached.
-- Ellery Schempp -
Drafting a constitution is only the first step. The constitution has to be granted legitimacy by open discussion and a fair, representative referendum.
-- Emma Bonino -
The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process.
-- Eric Holder -
The constitutions of Maryland and New York are founded in higher wisdom.
-- Ezra Stiles -
Our great Constitution has been beaten and torn until now it hangs by a single thread, and that thread is our franchise to vote.
-- Ezra Taft Benson -
The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself and not what we have said about it.
-- Felix Frankfurter -
No constitution is or can be perfectly symmetrical, what it can and must be is generally accepted as both fair and usable.
-- Ferdinand Mount -
That is, no matther whether th' constitution follows th' flag or not, th' supreme coort follows th' iliction returns.
-- Finley Peter Dunne -
The people are sovereign and the Constitution is supreme. There is no one greater than the people.
-- Franco Debono -
Not in the constitution, but I would propose a law to the French parliament that provides for reducing the budget deficit year by year, until we have reached a balanced budget by 2017.
-- Francois Hollande -
I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity.
-- Franklin Pierce -
The Constitution is what the judges say it is, every time.
-- Fred Rodell -
It's a rare human being who understands intellectually and emotionally the freedoms contained within our Constitution and the right of every human being to make decisions about their own lives consistent with their own conscience and without the interference of government.
-- Geoffrey Fieger -
Among the expected glories of the Constitution, next to the abolition of Slavery was that of Rum.
-- George Clymer -
It's no trifle at her time at her time of life to part with a doctor who knows her constitution.
-- George Eliot -
If the provisions of the constitution be not upheld when they pinch as well as when they comfort, they may as well be abandoned.
-- George Sutherland -
Precedents are dangerous things; let the reins of government then be braced and held with a steady hand, and every violation of the Constitution be reprehended: If defective let it be amended, but not suffered to be trampled upon whilst it has an existence.
-- George Washington -
I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy.
-- George Washington -
Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself.
-- George Washington -
The power under the Constitution will always be in the people.
-- George Washington -
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 -
It will at least be a recommendation to the proposed constitution that it is provided with more checks and barriers against the introduction of tyranny, and those of a nature less liable to be surmounted, than any government hitherto instituted among mortals hath possessed.
-- George Washington
