Constitution Quotes - Page 37

• 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

  Democracy, Today, Destruction

  Barbara Jordan, Shelby Hearon (1979). “Barbara Jordan, a self-portrait”, Doubleday Books

  124 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our Constitution is the envy of the world, as it should be for it is the grand design of the finest nation on earth.

  Thurgood Marshall

  Envy, Design, Democracy

  20 Copy quote

• The Constitution is an equally forthright piece of work and quite succinct ... giving the complete operating instructions for a nation of 250 million people. The manual for a Toyota Camry, which only seats five, is four times as long.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Long, People, Giving

  P.J. O'Rourke (2015). “Thrown Under the Omnibus”, p.213, Atlantic Books Ltd

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Government, Foundation, Blast

  George Washington (1858). “The Writings: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts : with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.257

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If the General Government should be left dependent on the State Legislatures, it would be happy for us if we had never met in this room.

  John Dickinson

  Government, Rooms, Would Be

  30 Copy quote

• Eternal vigilance must be maintained to guard against those who seek to stifle ideas, establish a narrow orthodoxy, and divide our nation along arbitrary lines of race, ethnicity, and religious belief or non-belief.

  Jesse Ventura

  Religious, Ethnicity, Ideas

  Jesse Ventura (2008). “Don't Start the Revolution Without Me!: From the Minnesota Governor's Mansion to the Baja Outback : Reflections and Revisionings”, Skyhorse Publishing Company Incorporated

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Today, as never before, the issue is clearly defined-liberty and freedom of choice, or oppression and subjugation for the individual and for nations.

  David O. McKay

  Issues, Choices, Liberty

  5 Copy quote

• May the Lord be with us at all times, under all circumstances; may he bring into our lives a burning desire to uphold the Constitution, a living faith in its inspired origin, that we may always be found among those who shall support it to the last breath.

  J. Reuben Clark

  Support, Desire, Burning

  11 Copy quote

• Eighteen months ago, when first I stood before you I called attention, as earnestly and seriously as I knew how, to what looked to me to be the dangers that were ahead, and I urged you at that time to practice the old virtues of thrift, of honesty, of truthfulness, of industry, and so on through the list of those I named. All that I said then I say again.

  J. Reuben Clark

  Honesty, Practice, Attention

  11 Copy quote

• One year ago, on this occasion, I called your attention to the abuses that had crept into the distribution of our public funds, and I urged you and pleaded with you that, so far as the Church and its membership were concerned, we do not soil our hands with the bounteous outpouring of funds which the government was giving unto us. I renew that plea now. My brethren and sisters, for the sake of the government which we love, for the sake of the government which we believe was divinely inspired, be honest with it. Be honest, just ordinarily gold honest. That is all I ask.

  J. Reuben Clark

  Believe, Hands, Years

  4 Copy quote

• Do you know that all of the money that we are spending, that the government is spending, must come from you? The government has no great pile of gold to which it can go to get what it gives you. The government has not one cent that it does not take from your pockets. Do not imagine, do not believe, do not go on the theory that you are not to pay this bill, unless the fundamentals of our government are to be overturned.

  J. Reuben Clark

  Believe, Government, Giving

  33 Copy quote

• What we get, we members of the Church, compared with the total mass that is distributed, is almost microscopic, but the spirit in which we might take it, the spirit in which we might spend it, is the leaven that might leaven the whole lump. Let us be patriotic; let us love the government under which we live.

  J. Reuben Clark

  Patriotic, Government, Church

  4 Copy quote

• I am persuaded, from all the facts that have come to me, that it would have been possible, if we had functioned as the Lord intended us to function, if we had paid our tithes and our offerings as the Lord intended us to pay them, we might have gone on without one dollar from our federal government. And has it ever occurred to you what a mighty influence we should have exercised for good and for respect and for all of the virtues that we have been taught, and that God has commanded us to exercise and cultivate and practice, if we had just followed along what he has asked us to do?

  J. Reuben Clark

  Exercise, Should Have, Practice

  9 Copy quote

• The God we worship is no respecter of persons, but He is a respecter of men's rights, and a guardian of them-a fact clearly shown in the heaven-inspired Constitution of our country, and in the Gospel itself, which might be termed the Constitution of Eternity.

  Orson F. Whitney

  Country, Men, Rights

  8 Copy quote

• The faith of the Latter-day Saints and the teaching that I have had since I was a child at my mother's knee, as well as from this stand, is that the Constitution of our country was written by men inspired of the Lord God Almighty. Therefore we, as Latter-day Saints, more than any other people, ought to be supporters of the Constitution, and all constitutional law.

  Heber J. Grant

  Mother, Country, Children

  17 Copy quote

• I believe that it is my duty and your duty to teach our children concerning this great God-inspired Constitution, this great law of liberty which he has given to this world, and which was never given before to any nation in any land. Never before has there been a representative government of this kind. Republics have been tried, hundreds of times, thousands of years ago, but never was there anything like this Government.

  Charles W. Nibley

  Children, Believe, Government

  8 Copy quote

• By natural means, as the Lord always operates for the accomplishment of his purposes, means so simple that the thoughtless and unbelieving do not see the manifestation of his power, he brought the Puritans from the old world to New England, the Dutch to New York, the English Cavaliers to Virginia and the French to New Orleans, a combination of races which, paradoxical as it may appear, was just calculated to give us the composite America who made the United States of America what it is, the greatest nation of the world today.

  Anthony W. Ivins

  New York, Mean, Simple

  6 Copy quote

• Inspired men have been raised up, who have given us our form of government, and the code of laws by which we are controlled, the best ever evolved by man, so far as we are able to judge. The Lord has strengthened the arms of the patriots who have defended us against the assaults of all those who have come up against us, and delivered us until today, from those who would have torn us asunder. Against all opposition, I sometimes think almost against ourselves, the Lord has brought us to our present condition, until this nation, like a city set on a hill, has become the light of the world.

  Anthony W. Ivins

  Men, Thinking, Light

  6 Copy quote

• First, we should become informed about communism, about socialism, and about Americanism. What better way can one become informed than by first studying the inspired words of the prophets and using that as a foundation; against which to test all other material. This is in keeping with the Prophet Joseph Smith's motto, "When the Lord commands, do it."

  Ezra Taft Benson

  Tests, Way, Firsts

  Ezra Taft Benson (1974). “God, family, country: our three great loyalties”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We should know why paternalism, collectivism, or unnecessary federal supervision will hold our standard of living down and reduce productivity just as it has in every country where it has been tried. We should also know why the communist leaders consider socialism the highroad to communism.

  Ezra Taft Benson

  Country, Communist Leaders, Down And

  Ezra Taft Benson (1974). “God, family, country: our three great loyalties”

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Many of the Latter-day Saints have surrendered their independence; they have surrendered their free thought, politically, and we have got to get back to where we are not surrendering the right. We must stay with the right and if we do so God will bless us.

  Heber J. Grant

  Independence, Saint, Free Thought

  4 Copy quote

• It is said that brother Joseph in his lifetime declared that the Elders of this Church should step forth at a particular time when the Constitution should be in danger, and rescue it, and save it. This may be so; but I do not recollect that he said exactly so. I believe he [Joseph] said something like this - that the time would come when the Constitution and the country would be in danger of an overthrow; and said he, If the Constitution be saved at all, it will be by the Elders of this Church. I believe this is about the language, as nearly as I can recollect it.

  Joseph Smith, Jr.

  Country, Brother, Freedom

  4 Copy quote

• We are friendly to our country, and when we speak of the flag of our Union, we love it, and we love the rights the Constitution guarantees to every citizen. What did the Prophet Joseph say? When the Constitution shall be tottering we shall be the people to save it from the hand of the foe.

  Joseph Smith, Jr.

  Country, Freedom, America

  5 Copy quote

• If there is trouble in the country, neither I nor my people made it, and all that we have ever done, after much endurance on our part, is to maintain and uphold the constitution and institutions of our country, and to protect an injured, innocent, and persecuted people against misrule and mob violence.

  Joseph Smith, Jr.

  Country, Freedom, America

  9 Copy quote

• Come, all ye lovers of liberty, break the oppressor's rod, loose the iron grasp of mobocracy, and bring to condign punishment all those who trample under foot the glorious Constitution and the people's rights.

  Joseph Smith, Jr.

  Freedom, America, Rights

  6 Copy quote