Preamble Quotes

• Indians today are governed by two different ideologies. Their political ideal set in the preamble of the Constitution affirms a life of liberty, equality and fraternity. Their social ideal embodied in their religion denies them.

  B. R. Ambedkar

  Equality, Two, Political

  "Political Science for Civil Services Main Examination". Book by N.D. Arora, 2010.

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• We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

  Gouverneur Morris

  Blessing, Order, America

  62 Copy quote

• We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Change, Happiness

  Declaration of Independence (1776).

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• The real difference between the United States and other nations lies not in the words of the preamble to the Constitution, but in the fact that the substantive clauses of that Constitution are enforced by individuals independent of and not beholden to the elected branches.

  Harold H. Greene

  Lying, Real, Independent

  35 Copy quote

• If the American Revolution had produced nothing but the Declaration of Independence, it would have been worthwhile.

  Samuel Eliot Morison

  Freedom, America, Independence

  Samuel Eliot Morison (1972). “The Oxford history of the American people”, Signet

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• The preamble to the Constitution states: "We, the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare..." It doesn't say "guarantee the general welfare." And it certainly doesn't say "give welfare benefits to all the people in the country who aren't doing so well even if the reason they aren't doing so well is because they're sitting on their butts in front of the TV".

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Country, Order, Perfect

  36 Copy quote

• I imagine an America that can actually change. That we become a nation that prospers again but without pillaging the resources of nations that make their people hate us. That we become a nation that, as the constitution says in its preamble, its very first paragraph, 'promotes the general welfare' of its people.

  Richard Schiff

  Hate, America, People

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• The Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its preamble, consider it purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? it is neither.

  Frederick Douglass

  Liberty, Purpose, Slavery

  What to the Slave is the 4th of July?, delivered 4 July 1852

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• Virginity is now a mere preamble or waiting room to be got out of as soon as possible; it is without significance.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Sex, Waiting Rooms, Significance

  Ursula K. Le Guin (1997). “Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places”, p.4, Grove Press

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• Like an apparently strict musical form it breaks the five minute whole into its structural parts - a descriptive preamble, the action of taking the cards, the development of the cards' manipulation and the revelation of what has been achieved.

  Gavin Bryars

  Musical, Cards, Development

  24 Copy quote

• Yet the whole preamble of the second authorization act for the Marshall Plan showed the direction Congress was ready to take about breaking down barriers within Europe.

  W. Averell Harriman

  Europe, Silence, Breaking Down

  62 Copy quote

• Virginity is now a mere preamble or waiting room to be got out of as soon as possible; it is without significance. Old age is similarly a waiting room, where you go after life's over and wait for cancer or a stroke. The years before and after the menstrual years are vestigial: the only meaningful condition left to women is that of fruitfulness.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Meaningful, Cancer, Waiting Rooms

  Ursula K. Le Guin (1997). “Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places”, p.4, Grove Press

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• I'd like to quit thinking of the present as some minor insignificant preamble to something else.

  Richard Linklater

  Confused, Thinking, Quitting

  19 Copy quote

• The Constitution, when it says, "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America," meant just what it said without reference to color or condition, ad infinitum.

  Joseph Smith, Jr.

  Freedom, Blessing, Order

  19 Copy quote

• If the Constitution was a movie, the Preamble would be the trailer, the First Amendment the establishing shot, the 13th the crowd pleaser and the 14th the ultimate hero scene.

  Henry Rollins

  Hero, Would Be, Crowds

  6 Copy quote

• Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Christian, Religious, Jesus

  "Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson". Book by Thomas Jefferson, 1821.

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• Our adversaries [ the Confederate States of America ] have adopted some declarations of independence in which, unlike the good old one penned by Jefferson, they omit the words "all men are created equal." Why? They have adopted a temporary national constitution, in the preamble of which, unlike our good old one, signed by Washington, they omit "We, the People," and substitute "We, the deputies of the sovereign and independent States." Why? Why this deliberate pressing out of view, the rights of men, and the authority of the people?

  Abraham Lincoln

  Independent, Men, America

  11 Copy quote

• Well, first let's say that the fundamental responsibility of any government is national security - in the preamble to the Constitution, provide for the common defense and insure domestic tranquility.

  Angus King

  Responsibility, Government, Defense

  "Congress Should Decide Encryption Issue, Sen. Angus King Says". "Morning Edition" with Steve Inskeep, www.npr.org. February 19, 2016.

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• I wish the government would read the Constitution. I think that would probably help quite a bit. And maybe they did read it and maybe they got confused when they read the preamble which says one of the duties is to promote the general welfare.

  Benjamin Carson

  Confused, Thinking, Government

  Source: www.patheos.com

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• The preamble of thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious to the conscious, is action. Only so much do I know, as I have lived. Instantly we know whose words are loaded with life, and whose not.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Transition, Action, Conscious

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.496

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• If the American Revolution had produced nothing but the Declaration of Independence, it would have been worth while. . . . The beauty and cogency of the preamble, reaching back to remotest antiquity and forward so an indefinite future, have lifted the hearts of millions of men and will continue to do. . . . These words are more revolutionary than anything written by Robespierre, Marx, or Lenin, more explosive than the atom, a continual challenge to ourselves as well as an inspiration to the oppressed of all the world.

  Samuel Eliot Morison

  Inspiration, Heart, Men

  13 Copy quote

• Preaching Christianity to skeptics without first setting out the praeambula fidei [preambles of faith], and then complaining when they don’t accept it, is like yelling in English at someone who only speaks Chinese, and then dismissing him as a fool when he doesn’t understand you. In both cases, while there is certainly a fool in the picture, it isn’t the listener.

  Edward Feser

  Yelling, Chinese, Fool

  49 Copy quote

• The religion of the short poem, in every age and in every literature, has a single commandment: Less is always more. The short poem rejects preamble and summary. It's about all and everything, the metaphysics of a few words surrounded by much silence. …The short poem is a match flaring up in a dark universe.

  Charles Simic

  Dark, Silence, Age

  15 Copy quote

• In a thousand words I can have the Lord's Prayer, the 23rd Psalm, the Hippocratic Oath, a sonnet by Shakespeare, the Preamble to the Constitution, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and almost all of the Boy Scout Oath. Now exactly what picture were you planning to trade for all that?

  Roy H. Williams

  Prayer, Writing, Boys

  15 Copy quote

• The monument serves to remind the appellate courts and judges of the circuit and district courts of this state and members of the bar who appear before them as well as the people of Alabama who visit the Alabama Judicial Building of the truth stated in the preamble of the Alabama Constitution, that in order to establish justice we must invoke the favor and guidance of Almighty God.

  Roy Moore

  Order, Justice, Judging

  10 Copy quote