Legislators Quotes - Page 5

• Legislators, priests, philosophers, writers, ans scientists have striven to show that the subordinate position of woman is willed in heaven and advantageous on earth.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Heaven, Earth, Philosopher

  Simone de Beauvoir (1953). “The second sex”, Vintage

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• Before the nineteen-seventies, most Republicans in Washington accepted the institutions of the welfare state, and most Democrats agreed with the logic of the Cold War. Despite the passions over various issues, government functioned pretty well. Legislators routinely crossed party lines when they voted, and when they drank; filibusters in the Senate were reserved for the biggest bills; think tanks produced independent research, not partisan talking points. The "D." or "R." after a politician's name did not tell you what he thought about everything, or everything you thought about him.

  George Packer

  War, Party, Independent

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• The great end of all human industry is the attainment of happiness. For this were arts invented, sciences cultivated, laws ordained, and societies modeled, by the most profound wisdom of patriots and legislators. Even the lonely savage, who lies exposed to the inclemency of the elements and the fury of wild beasts, forgets not, for a moment, this grand object of his being.

  David Hume

  Happiness, Lonely, Art

  David Hume (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of David Hume (Illustrated)”, p.664, Delphi Classics

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• Moses was the greatest legislator and the commander in chief of perhaps the first liberation army.

  Elie Wiesel

  Army, Firsts, Moses

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• Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Moving, Inspiration, Writing

  A Defence of Poetry (written 1821) See Auden 22; Auden 39; Andrew Fletcher 1; Samuel Johnson 22; Twain 104

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• Amendments occupy a great deal of most legislators' time, particularly those lawmakers in the minority. Members of Congress do author major bills, but more commonly they make minor adjustments to the bigger bill.

  Matt Taibbi

  Minorities, Bills, Amendments

  Matt Taibbi (2007). “Smells Like Dead Elephants: Dispatches from a Rotting Empire”, p.20, Black Cat

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• The constant need for special waivers is symptomatic of poorly written public policy. It's a signal that the cost of compliance is unreasonably high; the benefits are hard to measure; and either legislators or regulators have failed to do their homework.

  John Sununu

  Special, Needs, Cost

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• It is not only vain, but wicked, in a legislator to frame laws in opposition to the laws of nature, and to arm them with the terrors of death. This is truly creating crimes in order to punish them.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Thinking, Order, Law

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, Correspondence, and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Late President of the United States”, p.132

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• The choice of euthanasia becomes more serious when it takes the form of a murder committed by others on a person who has in no way requested it and who has never consented to it. The height of arbitrariness and injustice is reached when certain people, such as physicians or legislators, arrogate to themselves the power to decide who ought to live and who ought to die.

  Pope John Paul II

  People, Choices, Abortion

  Pope John Paul II (1996). “The Encyclicals of John Paul II”, Our Sunday Visitor (IN)

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• A child can go only so far in life without potty training. It is not mere coincidence that six of the last seven presidents were potty trained, not to mention nearly half of the nation's state legislators.

  Dave Barry

  Children, Political, Training

  Dave Barry (1984). “Babies and Other Hazards of Sex: How to Make a Tiny Person in Only 9 Months, with Tools You Probably Have Around the Home”, p.75, Rodale

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• It is unthinkable to allow complete strangers, whether individually or collectively as state legislators or others in government, to make such personal decisions for someone else.

  Sarah Weddington

  Government, Abortion, Decision

  Sarah Ragle Weddington (1993). “A question of choice”, Penguin Group USA

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• The evidence of [the] natural right [of expatriation], like that of our right to life, liberty, the use of our faculties, the pursuit of happiness, is not left to the feeble and sophistical investigations of reason, but is impressed on the sense of every man. We do not claim these under the charters of kings or legislators, but under the King of Kings.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Kings, Pursuit Of Happiness, Men

  Thomas Jefferson, H. A. Washington (2011). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private”, p.73, Cambridge University Press

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• The Bible carries with it the history of the creation, the fall and redemption of man, and discloses to him, in the infant born at Bethlehem, the Legislator and Savior of the world.

  John Quincy Adams

  Fall, Men, Redemption

  Samuel Hanson Cox, Thomas Chalmers, Nathanael Emmons, John Quincy Adams (1853). “Interviews: memorable and useful”, p.272

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• I started in the mailroom, literally, as an intern... in 1974. The legislator I was working for at the time said, 'I want you to get your law degree and come back here and get elected and be the first woman governor.' I kind of took that guy seriously - I thought that sounded like a pretty good idea.

  Claire McCaskill

  Law, Ideas, Guy

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• The disorganisers are those who want to level everything: property, comforts, the price of commodities, the various services rendered to the State... who want the workmen in the camp to receive the salary of the legislator... who want to level even talents, knowledge, the virtues, because they themselves have none of these things.

  Jacques Pierre Brissot

  Knowledge, Equality, Political

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• If we were left solely to the wordy wit of legislators in Congress for our guidance, uncorrected by the seasonal experience and the effectual complaints of the people, America would not long retain her rank among the nations.

  Henry David Thoreau

  America, Long, People

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• When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.

  Edmund Burke

  People, Leader, Auctions

  Edmund Burke (1790). “Reflections on the Revolution in France: And on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event. In a Letter Intended to Have Been Sent to a Gentleman in Paris”, p.353

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• Same sex marriage must be decided by the states, and by the people in the states, not by judges and not even by legislators, but by the people themselves.

  Liz Cheney

  Sex, Gay, People

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• The form of law which I propose would be as follows: In a state which is desirous of being saved from the greatest of all plagues-not faction, but rather distraction-there should exist among the citizens neither extreme poverty nor, again, excessive wealth, for both are productive of great evil . . . Now the legislator should determine what is to be the limit of poverty or of wealth.

  Plato

  Law, Evil, Would Be

  Plato (1872). “Laws. Appendix: Lesser Hippias. First Alcibiades. Menexenus. Index of persons and places”, p.269

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• I would wager that my job has helped save our economy from the economic ravages of out-of-control environmental extremism. I view my job a little like a legislator, supported by the taxpayer, to protect the interests of the taxpayer and to minimize the role of government.

  Roy Spencer

  Jobs, Government, Views

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• We should commit ourselves to 'eucharistic coherence,' that is, we should be conscious that people cannot receive holy communion and at the same time act or speak against the commandments, in particular when abortions, euthanasia, and other serious crimes against life and family are facilitated. This responsibility applies particularly to legislators, governors, and health professionals.

  Pope Francis

  Responsibility, People, Pro Life

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• Children truly are the family's greatest treasure and most precious good. Consequently, everyone must be helped to become aware of the intrinsic evil of the crime of abortion. In attacking human life in its very first stages, it is also an aggression against society itself. Politicians and legislators, therefore, as servants of the common good, are duty bound to defend the fundamental right to life, the fruit of God's love.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Children, Greatest Treasure, Evil

  Pope Benedict XVI's address at a Meeting on Family and Life Issues In Latin America, w2.vatican.va. December 3, 2005.

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• Music, of all the liberal arts, has the greatest influence over the passions, and it is that to which the legislator ought to give the greatest encouragement.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Music, Encouragement, Art

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• I was a Georgia state legislator for a great many years

  Julian Bond

  Years, Georgia, Great Men

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• If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as much of it as you please: But if it means the liberty of affronting, calumniating and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it, whenever our legislators shall please so to alter the law and shall chearfully consent to exchange my liberty of abusing others for the privilege of not being abused myself.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Mean, Political Opinions, Law

  Benjamin Franklin, William Temple Franklin (1818). “Memoirs of the life and writings of Benjamin Franklin ...”, p.304, Printed for H. Colborn

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