Constitution Quotes - Page 36

• American patriotism is generally something that amuses Europeans, I suppose because children look idiotic saluting the flag and because the constitution contains so many cracks through which the lawyers may creep.

  Katharine Whitehorn

  Children, Cracks, Looks

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• The aim of the Constitutional Treaty was to be more readable; the aim of this treaty is to be unreadable ... The Constitution aimed to be clear, whereas this Treaty had to be unclear. It is a success.

  Karel De Gucht

  Aim, Clear, Treaties

  "Dominc Lawson: Pessimism is Brown's enemy on Europe". www.independent.co.uk. October 16, 2007.

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• A worldview is a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides the foundations on which we live and more and have our being.

  James W. Sire

  Heart, Commitment, Reality

  James W. Sire (2015). “Naming the Elephant: Worldview as a Concept”, p.141, InterVarsity Press

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• The Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation. It has no authority or obligation at all, unless as a contract between man and man. And it does not so much as even purport to be a contract between persons now existing.

  Lysander Spooner

  Men, Doe, Authority

  Lysander Spooner (1973). “No Treason and a Letter to Thomas F. Bayard”

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• If it be asked what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer, the genius of the whole system, the nature of just and constitutional laws, and above all the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America, a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it.

  James Madison

  Law, Class, America

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1842). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.265

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• It is not just a person's physical constitution, their intellegence, their education, or even their social conditioning that enables them to withstand hardship. Much more significant is their inner development. And while some may be able to survive through sheer willpower, the ones who suffer the least are those who have a high degree of patience and courage in the face of adversity.

  Dalai Lama

  Adversity, Suffering, Degrees

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• The people are sovereign and the Constitution is supreme. There is no one greater than the people.

  Franco Debono

  People, Sovereign, Greater

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• Unless they can pass the same test that immigrants must pass to become citizens, people shouldnt be allowed to vote. The idea that there is some public benefit in ignoramuses and morons pulling levers next to names on a ballot is one of the evil myths of post-modern America. The purpose of voting, in our country, is to select men and women with the competence and integrity to operate the mechanics of government fixed by our Constitution. For this process to have any public benefit requires that the choices be made on an intelligent, knowledgeable and reasoned basis.

  Charley Reese

  Country, Integrity, Men

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• An act against the Constitution is void; an act against natural equity is void.

  James Otis

  Void, Natural, Equity

  Argument against the writs of assistance, Boston, Mass., Feb. 1761

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• Impeachment appears six times in the U.S. Constitution. The Founders weren't concerned with anything more than with impeachment because they had lived under King George III and had in 1776 accused the king of all the things that George W. Bush wants to do: Usurpation of the power of the people; Being above the law; Criminal abuse of authority.

  Ramsey Clark

  Kings, Law, People

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• Impeachment is the direct constitutional means for removing a President, Vice President or other civil officers of the United States who has acted or threatened acts that are serious offenses against the Constitution, its system of government, or the rule of law, or that are conventional crimes of such a serious nature that they would injure the Presidency if there was no removal.

  Ramsey Clark

  Mean, Government, Law

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• Supreme Court opinion notwithstanding, corporations are not defined as people under the Constitution, and free speech can hardly be called free when only the rich are heard.

  Warren Rudman

  People, Speech, Corporations

  "Republicans losing their way on campaign finance reform" by Warren Rudman, www.washingtonpost.com. February 5, 2010.

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• The body must be regarded as a site of social, political, cultural and geographical inscriptions, production or constitution. The body is not opposed to culture, a resistant throwback to a natural past; it is itself a cultural, the cultural product.

  Elizabeth Grosz

  Past, Political, Culture

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

  Hannah

  Law, Land, America

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

  Thomas Sowell

  Protect

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

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• 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

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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.

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• 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

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• [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

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• 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

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