Quotes about constitution
page 13

“[ecclesiastical]Besides the danger of a direct mixture of religion and civil government, there is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by ecclesiastical corporations. The establishment of the chaplainship in Congress is a palpable violation of equal rights as well as of Constitutional principles. The danger of silent accumulations and encroachments by ecclesiastical bodies has not sufficiently engaged attention in the U. S.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

"Monopolies, Perpetuities, Corporations, Ecclesiastical Endowments"; this is an essay probably written sometime between 1817 and 1832. It has sometimes been incorrectly portrayed as having been uncompleted notes written sometime around 1789 while opposing the bill to establish the office of Congressional Chaplain. It was first published as "Aspects of Monopoly One Hundred Years Ago" in 1914 by Harper's Magazine and later in "Madison's Detached Memoranda" by Elizabeth Fleet in William and Mary Quarterly (1946). More information on this essay is available in "James Madison and Tax-Supported Chaplains" by Chris Rodda http://www.talk2action.org/story/2007/2/16/235118/895 1810s

Religion, Evil

“It is getting to be harder to run a constitution than to frame one.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

1880s, "The Study of Administration," 1887

“Who ever heard of a devout deist? Who ever heard of one who was willing to spend his life in missionary labor for the good of others? It is not according to the constitution of the mind that such a system should awaken the affections. And what is true of this system is true of every false system. All such systems leave the heart cold, and, accordingly, exert very little genuine, transforming power over the life.”

Mark Hopkins (educator) (1802–1887) American educationalist and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 504.

Life, Heart, Falseness

“The thirteen Colonies were not unaware of the difficulties which these problems presented. We shall find a great deal of wisdom in the method by which they dealt with them. When they were finally separated from Great Britain, the allegiance of their citizens was not to the Nation, for there was none. It was to the States. For the conduct of the war there had been a voluntary confederacy loosely constructed and practically impotent. Continuing after peace was made, when the common peril which had been its chief motive no longer existed, it grew weaker and weaker. Each of the States could have insisted on an entirely separate and independent existence, having full authority over both their internal and external affairs, sovereign in every way. But such sovereignty would have been a vain and empty thing. It would have been unsupported by adequate resources either of property or population, without a real national spirit; ready to fall prey to foreign intrigue or foreign conquest. That kind of sovereignty meant but little. It had no substance in it. The people and their leaders naturally sought for a larger, more inspiring ideal. They realized that while to be a citizen of a State meant something, it meant a great deal more if that State were a part of a national union. The establishment of a Federal Constitution giving power and authority to create a real National Government did not in the end mean a detriment, but rather an increment to the sovereignty of the several States. Under the Constitution there was brought into being a new relationship, which did not detract from but added to the power and the position of each State. It is true that they surrendered the privilege of performing certain acts for themselves, like the regulation of commerce and the maintenance of foreign relations, but in becoming a part of the Union they received more than they gave.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Freedom and its Obligations (1924)

Wisdom, War, People, Peace

“Why and how did our country fall from its brilliant antiquity to the degradation of pre-British days? The answer is that defeat of the oppressed castes at the hands of the Brahminic overlordship, of materialism by idealism, constituted the beginning of the fall of India’s civilization and culture which in the end led to the loss of national independence.”

E. M. S. Namboodiripad (1909–1998) Indian politician

Above two quotes are on Adi Sankara’s success of idealism vis-a-vis materialism in page=11.
History, Society, and Land Relations: Selected Essays

Loss, Country

“Republicans may be in control of the legislative branch, but they lack principled leadership. Consequently, true conservatives have faced an increasingly hostile environment from the DC establishment. It takes more than empty rhetoric to lead. The GOP must become a party of principle again. And in so doing, we have to learn to fight for conservatism and our Constitution again.”

Chris McDaniel (1971) American politician

Mississippi’s Chris McDaniel: Oust Boehner http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/01/05/mississippis-chris-mcdaniel-oust-boehner/ (January 5, 2015)

Hostility, Learning, Fight

“The Head of the State in the British Constitution is a Monarch and the Crown descends according to the rules of heredity. In India the Head of the State is an elected President who holds office for a term and can be removed for misconduct in accordance with the procedure laid down in the Constitution.”

Rajendra Prasad (1884–1963) Indian political leader

From his speech given on 28 November 1960 at laying the foundation-stone of the building of the Law Institute of India, in: p. 15
Presidents of India, 1950-2003

“The dead? But the dead have no rights. They are nothing; and nothing cannot own something. Where there is no substance, there can be no accident. This corporeal globe, and everything upon it, belong to its present corporeal inhabitants, during their generation. They alone have a right to direct what is the concern of themselves alone, and to declare the law of that direction; and this declaration can only be made by their majority. That majority, then, has a right to depute representatives to a convention, and to make the constitution what they think will be the best for themselves.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1810s, Letter to H. Tompkinson (AKA Samuel Kercheval) (1816)

Law, Thinking, Dead

“It is a mistake to assume that diplomacy can always settle international disputes if there is "good faith" and "willingness to come to an agreement". For in a revolutionary international order, each power will seem to its opponents to lack precisely these qualities. […] In the absence of an agreement on what constitutes a reasonable demand, diplomatic conferences are occupied with sterile repetitions of basic positions and accusations of bad faith, or allegations of "unreasonableness" and "subversion". They become elaborate stage plays which attempt to attach as yet uncommitted powers to one of the opposing systems.”

Henry Kissinger book A World Restored

A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace, 1812-22 (1957), p. 2
1950s

Faith

“The two-thirds rule [of the Senate], which can be changed only by constitutional amendment, will no doubt continue for a long time to come. Like monogamy, it is not completely satisfactory, but, like monogamy, it has won general if somewhat grudging acquiescence.”

Thomas A. Bailey (1902–1983) American historian

A Diplomatic History of the American People, 7th ed., p. 17

Change, Time

“We have built no national temples but the Capitol; we consult no common oracle but the Constitution.”

Rufus Choate (1799–1859) American politician

"The Importance of Illustrating New-England History by a Series of Romances like the Waverley Novels", a lecture delivered at Salem, Massachusetts (1833).

“They use [the term Isolationist] all the time, and they do that to be very negative. There are a few people in the country who say, "Well, that's good. I sort of like that term." I don't particularly like the term because I do not think I am an isolationist at all. Because along with the advice of not getting involved in entangling alliances and into the internal affairs of other countries, the Founders said – and it's permissible under the Constitution – to be friends with people, trade with people, communicate with them, and get along with them – but stay out of the military alliances. The irony is they accuse us, who would like to be less interventionist and keep our troops at home, of being isolationist. Yet if you look at the results of the policy of the last six years, we find that we are more isolated than ever before. So I claim the policy of those who charge us with being isolationists is really diplomatic isolationism. They are not willing to talk to Syria. They are not willing to talk to Iran. They are not willing to trade with people that might have questionable people in charge. We have literally isolated ourselves. We have less friends and more enemies than ever before. So in a way, it's one of the unintended consequences of their charges. They are the true isolationists, I believe.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Interview by Scott Horton, April 4, 2007 http://www.antiwar.com/horton/?articleid=10798 2000s, 2006-2009

People, Way, Home, Communication

“Charlottetown Patriot – in all that constitutes the real man, the honest statesman, the true patriot, the warm friend, and sincere Christian, he had few equals. Possessed of a clear intellect, a retentive memory, and a ready command of appropriate words, he was one of the most logical and powerful speakers we have ever heard.”

Alexander Mackenzie (1822–1892) 2nd Prime Minister of Canada

Buckingham and Ross 1892, p. 662
His Character

Memory, Sincerity

“The Court is most vulnerable and comes nearest to illegitimacy when it deals with judge-made constitutional law having little or no cognizable roots in the language or design of the Constitution…. There should be, therefore, great resistance to … redefining the category of rights deemed to be fundamental. Otherwise, the Judiciary necessarily takes to itself further authority to govern the country without express constitutional authority.”

Byron White (1917–2002) Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, American football player

Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986).

Law, Country

“Those that can readily master the difficulties of Mathematics find a considerable charm in the study, sometimes amounting to fascination. This is far from universal; but the subject contains elements of strong interest of a kind that constitutes the pleasures of knowledge. The marvellous devices for solving problems elate the mind with the feeling of intellectual power; and the innumerable constructions of the science leave us lost in wonder.”

Alexander Bain (1818–1903) Scottish philosopher and educationalist

Source: Education as a Science, 1898, p. 153.

Pleasure, Feeling, Mathematics, Knowledge

“The capacity to distinguish between empirical knowledge and value-judgments, and the fulfillment of the scientific duty to see the factual truth as well as the practical duty to stand up for our own ideals constitute the program to which we wish to adhere with ever increasing firmness.”

Max Weber (1864–1920) German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist

Max Weber, “Objectivity in Social Science and Social Policy” (1904)

Truth, Knowledge

“The supreme trial of the Constitution came at last under the tremendous pressure of civil war. We ourselves are witnesses that the Union emerged from the blood and fire of that conflict purified and made stronger for all the beneficent purposes of good government.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1880s, Inaugural address (1881)

War

“The aesthetic is the sine qua none for art: if a work is not aesthetic, it is not art by definition... We feel through the senses, and everyone knows that the content of art is feeling; it is the creation of an object for sensing that is the artist’s task; and it is the qualities of this object that constitute its felt content.”

Mark Rothko (1903–1970) American painter

Source: 1940's, Beyond the Aesthetics (1946), p. 38

Art, Feeling, Sense

“Defiance to constituted authority leaped like a spark from one flammable area to another, growing in heat as it went.”

Bernard Bailyn book The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

THE CONTAGION OF LIBERTY, Chapter VI, p. 305.
The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967)

“Every legal constitution is the product of a revolution. In the history of classes, revolution is the act of political creation, while legislation is the political expression of the life of a society that has already come into being. Work for reform does not contain its own force independent from revolution. During every historic period, work for reforms is carried on only in the direction given to it by the impetus of the last revolution and continues as long as the impulsion from the last revolution continues to make itself felt. Or, to put it more concretely, in each historic period work for reforms is carried on only in the framework of the social form created by the last revolution. Here is the kernel of the problem.”

Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) Polish Marxist theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary

Source: Reform or Revolution (1899), Ch. 8

Life, History, Problem

“The partisan situation in the Italian theater, particularly central Italy, has deteriorated to such an extent that it constitutes a serious danger to troops, supply lines, war industry and economic potential. The fight against the partisans must be carried out with all means at our disposal and with utmost severity. I will protect any commander who exceeds our usual restraint in the choice of methods in executing one's orders is better than failure or neglect to act.”

Albert Kesselring (1885–1960) German Luftwaffe Generalfeldmarschall during World War II

June 17, 1944. Quoted in "Mussolini: The Last 600 Days of Il Duce" - Page 131 - by Ray Moseley - History - 2004.

War, Failure, Fight

“At this moment the most stable Government in the world is our own, and it is solely because, in its real essence, it is the most free, in the only sense in which Freedom really exists; where men can act at their own free discretion, restrained only by the necessities of Justice. If the spirit of the Constitution is to be observed, that great instrument is always self-preserving. It needs only to be followed to be safeguarded.”

George Howard Earle, Jr. (1856–1928) American lawyer

From Does Price Fixing Destroy Liberty? (1920) by George H. Earle, Jr.

Men, World, Justice, Sense

“Today, for the first time in our long and chequered history, we find the whole of this vast land… brought together under the jurisdiction of one constitution and one union which takes over responsibility for the welfare of more than 320 million men and women who inhabit it.”

Rajendra Prasad (1884–1963) Indian political leader

On 26 January 1950 when took over as the President of India after it was proclained by the 34th and last Governor-General of India, Chakravarti Rajagopalachari as a Republic. Source: BBC News: 1950: India becomes a republic http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/26/newsid_3475000/3475569.stm, BBC News, 26 January 2005

Women, Men, History, Time

“The foreign policy of the US has been one of "empire building" ever since the First World War. The Constitution authorizes government to provide for "national DE-fense", not "international OF-fense". If Americans were really interested in promoting our national safety, they would realize that a policy of constant foreign intervention directly undermines that stated goal. Our country has military forces stationed in 135 countries around the world, and we are influencing their governments and economies either directly or indirectly in every case. That is the political equivalent of poking them in the eye with a sharp stick. It is little wonder then that dozens of countries and millions of people around the world harbor more than a little resentment against us. The recent mutilation of American civilians is just the beginning of the violence that will be directed toward us if we do not bring our troops home where they belong.”

Michael Badnarik (1954) American software engineer

April 2004

War, People, World, Home

“The Administration says then, there are no downsides or upsides to treating terrorists like civilian criminal defendants.But a lot of us would beg to differ. For example, there are questions we would've liked this foreign terrorist to answer before he lawyered up and invoked our US constitutional right to remain silence. Our US constitutional rights. Our rights that you, sir [addressing veteran in audience], fought and were willing to die for to protect in our Constitution. The rights that my son, as an infantryman in the United States Army, is willing to die for. The protections provided — thanks to you, sir! — we're gonna bestow them on a terrorist who hates our Constitution?! And tries to destroy our Constitution and our country. This makes no sense because we have a choice in how we're going to deal with a terrorist — we don't have to go down that road.There are questions that we would have liked answered before he lawyered up, like, "Where exactly were you trained and by whom? You—you're braggin' about all these other terrorists just like you — uh, who are they? When and where will they try to strike next?" The events surrounding the Christmas Day plot reflect the kind of thinking that led to September 11th. That threat — the threat, then, as the U. S. S. Cole was attacked, our embassies were attacked, it was treated like an international crime spree, not like an act of war. We're seeing that mindset again settle into Washington. That scares me, for my children and for your children. Treating this like a mere law enforcement matter places our country at grave risk. Because that's not how radical Islamic extremists are looking at this. They know we're at war. And to win that war, we need a commander-in-chief, not a perfesser of law standing at the lectern!”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

National Tea Party Convention keynote speech, Nashville, Tennessee, , quoted in
regarding President Obama
2014

Hate, War, Children, Law

“Courage that grows from constitution very often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it, and when it is only a kind of instinct in the Soul breaks out on all occasions without judgment or discretion. That courage which proceeds from the sense of our duty, and from the fear of offending Him that made us, acts always in a uniform manner, and according to the dictates of right reason.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 117.
The Guardian (1713)

Fear, Soul, Courage, Sense

“It is not so much then for the purpose of undertaking to proclaim new theories and principles that this annual celebration is maintained, but rather to reaffirm and reestablish those old theories and principles which time and the unerring logic of events have demonstrated to be sound. Amid all the clash of conflicting interests, amid all the welter of partisan politics, every American can turn for solace and consolation to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States with the assurance and confidence that those two great charters of freedom and justice remain firm and unshaken. Whatever perils appear, whatever dangers threaten, the Nation remains secure in the knowledge that the ultimate application of the law of the land will provide an adequate defense and protection.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

Justice, Law, Confidence, Knowledge

“If there be any fact in our history beyond dispute it is that Roger Sherman expressed the universal sentiment of our fathers when he said, 'The abolition of slavery seemed to be going on in the United States, and the good sense of the several States would probably by degrees complete it'. In that spirit the compromises of the Constitution were made. Had not slavery at that time deprecated itself as an evil, the Constitution could not have been formed. Could the future have been foreseen, it would not have been formed. But, reasoning from the light they had, it was fair to believe as they believed, that, when the slave-trade was prohibited, the system would wither away under the double curse of Morality and Law.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Law, History, Sense, Light

“By "regime values," I intend to suggest that the normative foundation of ethical standards for public servants in any regime is the values of that regime. In the United States these regime values happen to be constitutional values, but not every regime takes its constitution as seriously as Americans do… By using the word "regime," my intention was to stress the particularistic character of the values that form the basis of public administration ethics. By emphasizing regime rather than constitution, I hope to make this book more interesting to students from other countries who are studying public administration in the United States.”

John Rohr (1934–2011) American political scientist

(1989, p. ix-x); as cited in: Patrick Overeem, "The Concept of Regime Values Are Revitalization and Regime Change Possible?." The American Review of Public Administration 45.1 (2015): 46-60.
Ethics for bureaucrats, 1988

Books, Hope, Study, Country

“Working men in this hall…I…say to you, and through the Press to all the working men of this kingdom, that the accession to office of Lord Derby is a declaration of war against the working classes…They reckon nothing of the Constitution of their country—a Constitution which has not more regard to the Crown or to the aristocracy than it has to the people; a Constitution which regards the House of Commons fairly representing the nation as important a part of the Government system of the kingdom as the House of Lords or the Throne itself…Now, what is the Derby principle? It is the shutting out of much more than three-fourths, five-sixths, and even more than five-sixths, of the people from the exercise of constitutional rights…What is it that we are come to in this country that what is being rapidly conceded in all parts of the world is being persistently and obstinately refused here in England, the home of freedom, the mother of Parliaments…Stretch out your hand to your countrymen in every portion of the three kingdoms, and ask them to join in a great and righteous effort on behalf of that freedom which has so long been the boast of Englishmen, but which the majority of Englishmen have never yet possessed…Remember the great object for which we strive, care not for calumnies and for lies, our object is this—to restore the British Constitution and with all its freedom to the British people.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech in Birmingham (27 August 1866), quoted in The Times (28 August 1866), p. 4.
1860s

Men, War, People, World

“In Hawaii the United States has another possible source of undesirable immigration. The dominant element among its third of a million inhabitants is the Japanese, who have held themselves aloof from the other residents and shown little tendency to intermarry. Every Japanese child born in the islands is an American citizen, with the full right of entry to the mainland. The greater part of the rest of the population is a mongrel crowd. Chinese and native Hawaiians, until quite recently, have shown a marked tendency to intermarry. Every effort should be made to find some constitutional way by which Hawaii can be prevented from becoming a continuous source of supply of undesirable citizens of the United States.”

Madison Grant (1865–1937) American lawyer, eugenicist, and conservationist

The Conquest of a Continent (1933)

Way, Effort, Parting

“There can be not the least doubt that an Islamic constitution to be evolved thirteen centuries after the Right-Guided Caliphs may legitimately differ from that which was valid in and for their time.”

Muhammad Asad book The Principles of State and Government in Islam

Source: The Principles of State and Government in Islam (1961), Chapter 2: Terminology And Historical Precedent, p 27

Time

“Coalition: If the political developments in the country have created a situation like this, then it is for the country to decide whether they should have this Constitution or frame something which will take care of such situations. But as the Constitution stands, we cannot ask the President to do many things. The Constitution as framed is inadequate to deal with situations of the kind that have risen since the framing of the Constitution.”

R. Venkataraman (1910–2009) seventh Vice-President of India and the 8th President of India

The Rediff Interview/R Venkataraman

Country

“I always defended the Constitution, because it was for liberty. It was ordained by the people of the United States. Not by a superannuated old mummy of a judge, and a Jesuit at that, but by the people of the United States. To establish justice, secure the blessing of liberty for themselves and their posterity, and to secure the natural rights of every human being within its exclusive jurisdiction. Therefore, I love it. These men can perceive nothing in the Constitution but slavery.”

Owen Lovejoy (1811–1864) American politician

As quoted in His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838&ndash;64 https://books.google.com/books?id=qMEv8DNXVbIC&pg=PA193&lpg=PA199 (2004), edited by William Frederick Moore and Jane Ann Moore, p. 199 1860s, Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives (April 1860)

Love, Men, People, Justice

“Much of what we call consumption constitutes investment in human capital. Direct expenditures on education, health, and internal migration to take advantage of better job opportunities are clear examples. Earnings foregone by mature students attending school and by workers acquiring on the-job training are equally clear examples.”

Theodore Schultz (1902–1998) American economist

Source: "Investment in human capital," 1961, p. 1

Health, Education, School, Training

“There is one kind of judge. There is an independent judge under our Constitution. And the fact that they may have been a Republican or Democrat or an independent in a past life is completely irrelevant to how they conduct themselves as judges. And I think two centuries of experience has shown us that that ideal which the Founders established can be realized and has been realized and will continue to be realized.”

Brett Kavanaugh (1965) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Confirmation Hearing on the Nomination OF Brett M. Kavanaugh to be Ciruit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit https://www.congress.gov/108/chrg/shrg24853/CHRG-108shrg24853.htm (April 27, 2004)

Life, Thinking, Past

“Burglars! Good gracious!' cried the little woman, springing from the bed in one bound. The word 'burglar' was a terrible one to her, as it is indeed, to every well-constituted woman. 'Robbery' does not sound nearly so awe-inspiring.”

L. Frank Baum (1856–1919) Children's writer, editor, journalist, screenwriter

"The Loveridge Burglary" (1900)
Short stories

Spring

“That from the outset they expect or even impose all the properties of finite numbers upon the numbers in question, while on the other hand the infinite numbers, if they are to be considered in any form at all, must (in their contrast to the finite numbers) constitute an entirely new kind of number, whose nature is entirely dependent upon the nature of things and is an object of research, but not of our arbitrariness or prejudices.”

Georg Cantor (1845–1918) mathematician, inventor of set theory

Letter to Gustac Enestrom, as quoted in Georg Cantor : His Mathematics and Philosophy of the Infinite (1990) by Joseph Warren Dauben ~ ISBN 0691024472

Question, Nature, Dependency

“I get very disturbed when I see people demonstrating with signs that say "Welfare Rights." There is nothing in the Constitution that says you have a right to welfare! Do you know what welfare is? It's taking money from someone who is working to give to someone who's not!”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

I Ain't Got Time To Bleed (1999)

Money, People

“Hamilton doubted the cohesive force of the Constitution to make a nation. He was so far right, for no constitution can make a nation. That is a growth, and the vigor and intensity of our national growth transcended our own suspicions. It was typified by our material progress. General Hamilton died in 1804. In 1812, during the last war with England, the largest gun used was a thirty-six pounder. In the war just ended it was a two-thousand pounder. The largest gun then weighed two thousand pounds. The largest shot now weighs two thousand pounds. Twenty years after Hamilton died the traveler toiled painfully from the Hudson to Niagara on canal-boats and in wagons, and thence on horseback to Kentucky. Now he whirls from the Hudson to the Mississippi upon thousands of miles of various railroads, the profits of which would pay the interest of the national debt. So by a myriad influences, as subtle as the forces of the air and earth about a growing tree, has our nationality grown and strengthened, striking its roots to the centre and defying the tempest. Could the musing statesman who feared that Virginia or New York or Carolina or Massachusetts might rend the Union have heard the voice of sixty years later, it would have said to him, 'The babe you held in your arms has grown to be a man, who walks and runs and leaps and works and defends himself. I am no more a vapor, I am condensed. I am no more a germ, I am a life. I am no more a confederation, I am a nation.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1860s, The Good Fight (1865)

Life, War, Fear, Travel

“The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States.”

Salmon P. Chase (1808–1873) Chief Justice of the United States

Texas v. White, 7 Wallace, 725 (1869)

“What do we mean when we speak…of higher and lower animals? …What too about communication (a respect in which, Wilson says, we much exceed the insects)? What is so good about communicating? How are we sure that it constitutes and excellence? Is it even clear that in respect we do exceed the corals and the colonial jellyfish? With them, there are no internal barriers; information flow freely from unit to unit wherever it is needed. The unrestrictedness of the communication much exceeds that among people. Why does this fail to impress us?”

Mary Midgley (1919–2018) British philosopher and ethicist

Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature (1979). 151.

People, Communication, Animals

“We are Muslims; Muslims constitute a whole, they are in unity and they do not fragment. God deemed separation among Muslims unlawful. Fragmentizing Muslims is one of the gravest unlawful acts. It is unacceptable for Muslims to be fragmented under any name. ** 4 January 2014.”

Harun Yahya (1956) Turkish author

A9 TV addresses, 2014

God

“If then the Courts of justice are to be considered as the bulwarks of a limited Constitution, against Legislative encroachments, this consideration will afford a strong argument for the permanent tenure of Judicial offices, since nothing will contribute so much as this to that independent spirit in the Judges, which must be essential to the faithful performance of so arduous a duty. This independence of the Judges is equally requisite to guard the Constitution and the rights of individuals, from the effects of those ill humors, which the arts of designing men, or the influence of particular conjunctures, sometimes disseminate among the People themselves, and which, though they speedily give place to better information, and more deliberate reflection, have a tendency, in the mean time, to occasion dangerous innovations in the Government, and serious oppressions of the minor party in the community.”

Alexander Hamilton Federalist Papers

No. 78
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

Men, People, Faith, Justice

“[A]sk the slaves themselves how they were freed, and they will say, “Lincoln’s proclamation.” The testimony of freed people before the joint committee on reconstruction—about how they became free is uniform. They were well aware that the Fugitive Slave Laws and Constitutional provisions for the rendition of slaves were still in force. The position of runaways remained perilous. The Emancipation Proclamation resolved that.”

Allen C. Guelzo (1953) American historian

2010s, Interview with Tom Mackaman (2013)

People, Law

“Such is the real distribution of duties, responsibilities, and expenses. Yet people are given to thinking and speaking of the National Government as 'the Government'. They demand more from it than it was ever intended to provide; and yet in the same breath they complain that Federal authority is stretching itself over areas which do not concern it. On one side, there are demands for more amendments to the Constitution. On the other, there is too much opposition to those that already exist.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Reign of Law (1925)

People, Thinking

“I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion.”

Samuel Alito (1950) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

"Application to become deputy assistant AG" http://washingtontimes.com/national/20051114-015136-2101r.html, Washington Times, (1985)

“In no country in the world are the majority of the population oppressed so much as in Russia; Great Russians constitute only 43 per cent of the population, i. e., less than half; the non-Russians are denied all rights.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

The War and Russian Social-Democracy (September 1917), The Lenin Anthology
1910s

World, Country

“It does not follow because many books are written by persons born in America that there exists an American literature. Books which imitate or represent the thoughts and life of Europe do not constitute an American literature. Before such can exist, an original idea must animate this nation and fresh currents of life must call into life fresh thoughts along its shores.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

"American Literature" in Papers on Literature and Art (1846), p. 122.

Life, Books, Literature, Idea

“What, then, is the Constitution? I will tell you. It is not even like the British Constitution, which is made up of enactments of Parliament, decisions of Courts, and the established usages of the Government. The American Constitution is a written instrument full and complete in itself. No Court in America, no Congress, no President, can add a single word thereto, or take a single word threreto. It is a great national enactment done by the people, and can only be altered, amended, or added to by the people. I am careful to make this statement here; in America it would not be necessary. It would not be necessary here if my assailant had shown the same desire to be set before you the simple truth, which he manifested to make out a good case for himself and friends.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, The Constitution of the United States: Is It Pro-Slavery or Anti-Slavery? (1860)

People, Truth, Decision

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

James Otis Jr. (1725–1783) Lawyer in colonial Massachusetts

Argument Against the Writs of Assistance (1761)

Nature

“Unity is the only way in which the people of this country can overthrow the fascists, communists, capitalists, and all the other assholes who claim running a representative government is so difficult. The emphasis has been taken from the Bill of Rights and placed on the type of interpretation of the Constitution that best suits the people in power.”

William Powell (author) book The Anarchist Cookbook

Source: The Anarchist Cookbook (1971), Chapter Three: "Natural, Nonlethal, and Lethal Weapons", p. 78.

People, Way, Country

“Bear in mind, also, and the fact is an important one, that the framers of the Constitution sat with doors closed, and that this was done purposely, that nothing but the result of their labours should be seen, and that that result should be judged of by the people free from any of the bias shown in the debates. It should also be borne in mind, and the fact is still more important, that the debates in the convention that framed the Constitution, and by means of which a pro-slavery interpretation is now attempted to be forced upon that instrument, were not published till more than a quarter of a century after the presentation and the adoption of the Constitution.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, The Constitution of the United States: Is It Pro-Slavery or Anti-Slavery? (1860)

People

“It may be said that the conditions are glorious for the French Republic: it must be confessed that they are; and there is not a Briton but who ought honestly to rejoice that such is the fact. The people of France resisted, as they ought to do, the whole combination of powers who would have imposed upon them a constitution contrary to their own will. Their's was the cause of liberty—the cause of mankind at large. They had every obstacle to oppose which imagination can suggest—but they have triumphed over such obstacles—their cause has been crowned with an everlasting triumph…We have not, I acknowledge, obtained the objects for which the War was undertaken—so much the better—I rejoice that we have not. I like the Peace the more on this very account.”

Charles James Fox (1749–1806) British Whig statesman

Speech to his constituents at the Shakespeare Tavern, Westminster (10 October 1801) on peace with Napoleonic France, reported in The Times (12 October 1801), p. 2.
1800s

War, People, Peace, Imagination

“To have loved and lost, either by that total disenchantment which leaves compassion as the sole substitute for love which can exist no more, or by the slow torment which is obliged to let go day by day all that constitutes the diviner part of love — namely, reverence, belief, and trust, yet clings desperately to the only thing left it, a long-suffering apologetic tenderness — this lot is probably the hardest any woman can have to bear.”

Dinah Craik (1826–1887) English novelist and poet

Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 10

Love, Suffering, Parting

“Men that look no further than their outsides, think health an appurtenance unto life, and quarrel with their constitutions for being sick; but I that have examined the parts of man, and know upon what tender filaments that fabric hangs, do wonder that we are not always so; and considering the thousand doors that lead to death, do thank my God that we can die but once.”

Thomas Browne book Religio Medici

Section 44
Compare: "I know death hath ten thousand several doors / For men to take their exits.", John Webster, Duchess of Malfi (1623); Act IV, scene ii.
Religio Medici (1643), Part I

Life, Death, Men, God

“Do not prevent jihadists from leaving our country. Let them leave, with as many friends as possible. If it helps, I am even prepared to go to Schiphol to wave them goodbye. But let them never come back. That is the condition. Good riddance. And, as far as I am concerned, anyone who expresses support for terror as a means to overthrow our constitutional democracy has to leave the country at once. If you are waving an ISIS flag you are waving an exit ticket. Leave! Get out of our country!”

Geert Wilders (1963) Dutch politician

Speech by Geert Wilders during parliamentary debate in the Netherlands (4 September 2014) ( video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7mfCYbGGuI) 2010s

Democracy, Support, Help, Country

“I think it's already apparent that a good part of this Nation understands — if only instinctively — that anything which seems to suggest that God favors a political party or the establishment of a state church, is wrong and dangerous.
Way down deep the American people are afraid of an entangling relationship between formal religions — or whole bodies of religious belief — and government. Apart from constitutional law and religious doctrine, there is a sense that tells us it's wrong to presume to speak for God or to claim God's sanction of our particular legislation and His rejection of all other positions. Most of us are offended when we see religion being trivialized by its appearance in political throw-away pamphlets.
The American people need no course in philosophy or political science or church history to know that God should not be made into a celestial party chairman.”

Mario Cuomo (1932–2015) American politician, Governor of New York

Religious Belief and Public Morality (1984)

God, People, Religion, Law

“Of all the many and (thanks to a free press) the ever-multiplying blessings attendant upon the "glorious constitution" of literature, not the least precious and profitable to a modern cultivator of systems and syllables, in pamphlets, magazines, and folios, is the right of Quotation.”

Samuel Laman Blanchard (1804–1845) British author and journalist

"Quotations".
Sketches from Life (1846)

Literature

“It is in the nature of a teenager to want to destroy. The destructive impulse is universal among children of all ages, rises to a peak of vividness, ingenuity and fascination in adolescence, and thereafter never entirely goes away. Violence and hatred, and the fear of our own inability to control them in ourselves, are a fundamental part of our birthright, along with altruism, creativity, tenderness, pity and love. It therefore requires an immense act of hypocrisy to stigmatize our young adults and teenagers as agents of deviance and disorder. It requires a policy of dishonesty about and blindness to our own histories, as a species, as a nation, and as individuals who were troubled as teenagers, and who will always be troubled, by the same dark impulses. It also requires that favorite tool of the hypocritical, dishonest and fearful: the suppression of constitutional rights.”

Michael Chabon (1963) Novelist, short story writer, essayist

Solitude and the Fortresses of Youth http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/13/opinion/13CHAB.html?ex=1397188800&en=e08e585ef55c305e&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND, New York Times (April 13, 2004)

Love, Children, Age, Fear

“I was filled with joy when studying quantum physics at the university as a means to understand the universe. But at the same time, I was preoccupied with the oppressive conditions in my country and the tyranny suffered by our universities, intellectuals, and the media. Like many others in our universities, I felt compelled to join the struggle for freedom. What we experience is a decades-old tyranny, that cannot tolerate freedom of speech and thought. In the name of religion, it restricts and punishes science, intellect, and even love. It labels as a threat to national security and toxic to society whatever is not compatible with its political and economic interests. It considers punishing unwelcome ideas as a positive thing. It does not tolerate differences of opinion; it responds to logic not by logic, discussion or dialog, but by suppression. By tyranny I mean a ruling power that tries to make only one voice—the voice of a ruling minority in Iran—dominant, with no regard for pluralism in the society. By tyranny I mean a judiciary that disregards even the Islamic Republic’s own constitution, and sentences intellectuals, writers, journalists, and political and civil activists to long prison terms, without due process and trial in a court of law. … By tyranny I mean power-holders who believe they stand above the law and who disregard justice and the urgent demands of the human conscience.”

Narges Mohammadi (1972) Iranian human rights activist

Letter Accepting 2018 Andrei Sakharov Prizefrom (2018)

Love, Religion, Justice, Law

“The law and the constitution are like a child's pants. They've got to be made wider and longer as the child grows so as to fit him. If they're kept too tight, he'll burst them; and if you're in a hurry and make them too big all at once, they'll trip him up.”

John Buchan book The Path of the King

Source: The Path of the King (1921), Ch. XIV "The End of the Road", I

Law

“The debate forced upon the mind of the country this question. Does the Constitution, made at the time we know, by the men we know, holding the views we know, for the distinct intention it declares, stultify itself by securing the destruction of its expressed purposes?”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Men, Question, Time, Country

“The two parties represent two opposite moods of the English mind, which may be trusted, unless past experience is wholly useless, to succeed each other from time to time. Neither of them, neither the love of organic changes nor the dislike of it, can be described as normal to a nation. In every nation, they have succeeded each other at varying intervals during the whole of the period which separates its birth from its decay. Each finds in the circumstances and constitution of individuals a regular support which never deserts it. Among men, the old, the phlegmatic, the sober-minded, among classes, those who have more to lose than to gain by change, furnish the natural Conservatives. The young, the envious, the restless, the dreaming, those whose condition cannot easily be made worse, will be rerum novarum cupidi.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

But the two camps together will not nearly include the nation: for the vast mass of every nation is unpolitical.
Quarterly Review, 133, 1872, pp. 583-584
1870s

Love, Men, Dreams, Birth

“Knowledge of these multiple and ever-more aggressive raids across the country constituted an identifiable pattern of conduct within and by the federal government and amongst its various agencies. For all intents and purposes, federal agents had become 'soldiers' using military training, tactics, techniques, equipment, language, dress, organization, and mindset and they were escalating their behavior. Therefore, this bombing was also meant as a pre-emptive or pro-active strike against these forces and their command and control centers within the federal building. When an aggressor force continually launches attacks from a particular base of operation, it is sound military strategy to take the fight to the enemy.”

Timothy McVeigh (1968–2001) American army soldier, security guard, terrorist

2000s, Why I Bombed the Murrah Federal Building (2001)

Behavior, Knowledge, Fight, Training

“Our militant union with peoples which still have to carry on an armed struggle against the colonialists constitutes an important element of our line in international affairs.”

Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Cited in Ussr and Countries of Africa http://leninist.biz/en/1980/UCOA319/01.5.1-Struggle.of.Former.Portuguese.Colonies

People

“In art progress does not consist in extension, but in the knowledge of limits.
Limitation of means determines style, engenders new form, and give impulses to creation.
Limited means often constitute the charm and force of primitive painting. Extension, on the contrary, leads the arts to decadence.
New means, new subjects.
The subject is not the object; it is a new unity, a lyricism which grows completely from the means.”

Georges Braque (1882–1963) French painter and sculptor

Source: 1908 - 1920, quotes from Artists on Art...(1972), p. 423 - short quotes by Georges Braque on 'Means' - Paris, 1917

Art, Knowledge, Painting

“It took centuries of intellectual, philosophical development to achieve political freedom. It was a long struggle, stretching from Aristotle to John Locke to the Founding Fathers. The system they established was not based on unlimited majority but on its opposite: on individual rights, which were not to be alienated by majority vote or minority plotting. The individual was not left at the mercy of his neighbors or his leaders: the Constitutional system of checks and balances was scientifically devised to protect him from both. This was the great American achievement—and if concern for the actual welfare of other nations were our present leaders' motive, this is what we should have been teaching the world. Instead, we are deluding the ignorant and the semi-savage by telling them that no political knowledge is necessary—that our system is only a matter of subjective preference—that any prehistorical form of tribal tyranny, gang rule, and slaughter will do just as well, with our sanction and support. It is thus that we encourage the spectacle of Algerian workers marching through the streets [in the 1962 Civil War] and shouting the demand: "Work, not blood!"—without knowing what great knowledge and virtue are required to achieve it. In the same way, in 1917, the Russian peasants were demanding: "Land and Freedom!" But Lenin and Stalin is what they got. In 1933, the Germans were demanding: "Room to live!" But what they got was Hitler. In 1793, the French were shouting: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!"”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

What they got was Napoleon. In 1776, the Americans were proclaiming "The Rights of Man"—and, led by political philosophers, they achieved it. No revolution, no matter how justified, and no movement, no matter how popular, has ever succeeded without a political philosophy to guide it, to set its direction and goal.
The Ayn Rand Column

War, World, Way, Motivation

“At a time in our history when the streets of the Nation's cities inspire fear and despair, rather than pride and hope, it is difficult to maintain objectivity and concern for our fellow citizens. But, the measure of a country's greatness is its ability to retain compassion in time of crisis. No nation in the recorded history of man has a greater tradition of revering justice and fair treatment for all its citizens in times of turmoil, confusion, and tension than ours. This is a country which stands tallest in troubled times, a country that clings to fundamental principles, cherishes its constitutional heritage, and rejects simple solutions that compromise the values that lie at the roots of our democratic system.”

Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993) Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court

Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, Concurring opinion (January 17, 1972)

Lie, Fear, Justice, Hope

“The constitution as agreed to till a fortnight before the convention rose was such a one as he could have set his hand and heart to.”

George Mason (1725–1792) American delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention

Discussion with Jefferson (1792)

Heart

“Grey was an ambitious man who always wished to lead, but his overt ambition during his youth made him unpopular. He lacked the warmth of personality that made Fox revered by his followers. Grey was respected but rarely loved. His achievements were few, but they were significant. He helped to keep liberal principles alive during the years of conflict with revolutionary France, and in 1832 he safeguarded the continuity of the British constitution into an era of increasingly rapid social and political change. In character he was a man of contradictions, headstrong but easily discouraged by failure, imperious but indecisive, cautious and introspective. He was at his best when in office, for he sought fame and reputation: in opposition he often became despondent. He was a man of principle and integrity, though not always successful in execution. His bearing and attitudes were aristocratic, and his instincts were fundamentally conservative. He was a whig of the eighteenth-century school, most at home among his deferential clients, tenants, and labourers at Howick, and he never came to terms with the new industrial society which was coming into being during his later years. It is greatly to his credit that his Reform Act, whatever its conservative purpose, smoothed the path for that new society to establish its dominance without destroying the old.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

E. A. Smith, ‘ Grey, Charles, second Earl Grey (1764–1845) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/11526’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2009, accessed 8 Sept 2012. About

Love, Youth, School, Home

“In the constitution of that rational animal I see no virtue which is opposed to justice, but I see a virtue which is opposed to love of pleasure, and that is temperance.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

VIII, 39
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VIII

Love, Pleasure, Justice, Animals

“There are two kinds of morality—the kind of morality that one imposes on oneself and the kind of morality that one imposes on others. For the first kind of morality, that is, for self-restraint, I have the greatest respect. The second kind of morality I do not respect except when it constitutes self-defense. (For example, when women say that rape and wife-beating are immoral, that is self-defense.) I have noticed that the people who try hardest to impose moral code on others (not in self-defense) are often the least careful to abide by that moral code themselves.”

Theodore Kaczynski (1942) American domestic terrorist, mathematician and anarchist

"Morality and Revolution"
The Road to Revolution (2008)

Women, People

“The very highest duty of the States, when they entered into the Union under the Constitution, was to protect all persons within their boundaries in the enjoyment of these 'unalienable rights with which they were endowed by their Creator.' Sovereignty, for this purpose, rests alone with the States. It is no more the duty or within the power of the United States to punish for a conspiracy to falsely imprison or murder within a State, than it would be to punish for false imprisonment or murder itself.”

Morrison Waite (1816–1888) American politician

United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875)

Personality, Falseness

“It is also not entirely unworthy of observation, that in declaring what shall be the supreme law of the land, the constitution itself is first mentioned; and not the laws of the United States generally, but those only which shall be made in pursuance of the constitution, have that rank. Thus, the particular phraseology of the constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the constitution is void; and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.”

John Marshall (1755–1835) fourth Chief Justice of the United States

5. U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 180
Marbury v. Madison (1803)

Law

“There is one thing about “our tiny Parsi community” that you must know, which is that to us (or at least to most of us) the one thing greater than being a Parsi is being an Indian. I am proud of the fact that our community rejected the offer made at the time of drafting of India’s Constitution — to Anglo Indians and Parsis alike — to have, for at least 10 years, one special representative in Parliament. Sir Homi Mody said in the Constituent Assembly that Parsis would rather join the mainstream of free India. And we did. We have no regrets. I must also tell you that the “tiny Parsi community” not only churns out legal luminaries, but produces geniuses in the medical field as well. As to how it is that we have been formidable in the legal and medical world, I just cannot say. But I like to think that it is because of our religion — a religion of good morals, which Parsi Zoroastrians find difficult to explain, but easy to live by.”

Fali Sam Nariman (1929) Indian politician

Fali Sam Nariman: An Interview

World, Religion, Communication, Thinking

“The Constitution requires that Congress treat similarly situated persons similarly, not that it engage in gestures of superficial equality.”

William H. Rehnquist (1924–2005) Chief Justice of the United States

Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U.S. 57 at 80 (1981) (majority opinion); this ruling upheld a military draft for males only.
Judicial opinions

Personality

“For the fundamental fact of human psychology is that society, instead of remaining almost entirely inside the individual organism as in the case of animals prompted by their instincts, becomes crystallized almost entirely outside the individuals. In other words, social rules, as Durkheim has so powerfully shown, whether they be linguistic, moral, religious, or legal, etc., cannot be constituted, transmitted or preserved by means of an internal biological heredity, but only through the external pressure exercised by individuals upon each other.”

Jean Piaget (1896–1980) Swiss psychologist, biologist, logician, philosopher & academic

Source: The Moral Judgment of the Child (1932), Ch. 2 : Adult Constraint and Moral Realism

Exercises, Animals

“While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation, while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candour, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world. Because we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. Oaths in this country are as yet universally considered as sacred obligations. That which you have taken, and so solemnly repeated on that venerable ground, is an ample pledge of your sincerity and devotion to your country and its government.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Letter to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, 11 October 1798, in Revolutionary Services and Civil Life of General William Hull http://books.google.com/books?id=E2kFAAAAQAAJ&dq=editions%3AVsZcW99fWPgC&pg=PA265#v=onepage&q&f=false (New York, 1848), pp 265-6. There are some differences in the version that appeared in The Works of John Adams (Boston, 1854), vol. 9, pp. 228-9 http://books.google.com/books?id=PZYKAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA228#v=onepage&q&f=false, most notably the words "or gallantry" instead of "and licentiousness". 1790s

People, World, Religion, Justice

“The right to vote is a consequence, not a primary cause, of a free social system—and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voters' power; unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

The Ayn Rand Letter (1971–1976)

Dependency

“With humble duty, I wish to submit to you the following advice, acting in my capacity as your representative in Fiji. Owing to the uncertainty of the political and constitutional situation in Fiji, I have now made up my mind to request Your Majesty to relieve me of my appointment as Governor-General with immediate effect. This I do with utmost regret, but my endeavours to preserve constitutional government in Fiji have proved in vain, and I can see no alternative way forward. With deepest respect, Penaia Ganilau, Governor-General.”

Penaia Ganilau (1918–1993) President of Fiji

letter of resignation to Queen Elizabeth II

Way

“Capitalism cannot be reduced to one or a few features, but it does possess one relationship, central to its existence and operation, that constitutes the essence of inequality and ineradicable instability: the wage-labor-capital connection that dwells at the heart of the system.”

Herbert Schiller (1919–2000) American media critic

Source: Living In The Number One Country (2000), Chapter Five, Corporatizing Communication And Culture, p. 132

Heart

“I see an America on the move again, united, a diverse and vital and tolerant nation, entering our third century with pride and confidence, an America that lives up to the majesty of our Constitution and the simple decency of our people.
This is the America we want. This is the America that we will have.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Pre-Presidency, First Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech (1976)

People, Confidence

“The House has today resolved to enter upon a revolution against the Constitution and Government of the United States… [N]othing less than the total subversion of this government.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1870s, Speech (1879)

Housing

“The power of impeachment is given by this Constitution, to bring great offenders to punishment. It is calculated to bring them to punishment for crimes which it is not easy to describe, but which every one must be convinced is a high crime and misdemeanor against the government.”

James Iredell (1751–1799) one of the first Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States

July 28, 1788, p. 107.
North Carolina's Debates, in Convention, on the adoption of the Federal Constitution (1787)

“The President, and government, will only control the militia when a part of them is in the actual service of the federal government, else, they are independent and not under the command of the president or the government. The states would control the militia, only when called out into the service of the state, and then the governor would be commander in chief where enumerated in the respective state constitution.”

Alexander Hamilton Federalist Papers

No. 69
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

Parting

“To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

Message to the National Security League in honor of Constitution Day, quoted in New York Times (17 September 1923) "Ceremonies Mark Constitution Day".
1920s

“Cannabis: The reason it's not in the Constitution is because letting states and individuals decide is in the Constitution. That thing of beauty is called the Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

" Whodunit? Who Meddled With Out Democracy? https://www.unz.com/imercer/whodunit-who-meddled-with-our-democracy/" February 8, 2018, The Unz Review. 2010s, 2018

People, Beauty

“The idea which pervades our Constitution; that all men of every race are equal before the laws.”

Henry Wilson (1812–1875) Union Army officer, Vice president, politician, historian

Source: Speech (June 1853), p. 79

Men, Law, Idea

“As I understand the various opinions today: One Justice holds that two-parent notification is unconstitutional (at least in present circumstances) without judicial bypass, but constitutional with bypass […]; four Justices would hold that two-parent notification is constitutional with or without bypass […]; four Justices would hold that two-parent notification is unconstitutional with or without bypass, though the four apply two different standards […]; six Justices hold that one-parent notification with bypass is constitutional, though for two different sets of reasons […]; and three Justices would hold that one-parent notification with bypass is unconstitutional […]. One will search in vain the document we are supposed to be construing for text that provides the basis for the argument over these distinctions and will find in our society’s tradition regarding abortion no hint that the distinctions are constitutionally relevant, much less any indication how a constitutional argument about them ought to be resolved. The random and unpredictable results of our consequently unchanneled individual views make it increasingly evident, Term after Term, that the tools for this job are not to be found in the lawyer’s – and hence not in the judges – workbox. I continue to dissent from this enterprise of devising an Abortion Code, and from the illusion that we have authority to do so.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

On whether a state law may require notification of both parents before a minor can obtain an abortion; Hodgson v. Minnesota (1990, concurring in the judgment and dissenting in part), 497 U.S. 417 http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/497/417.html, No. 88-605 ; decided June 25, 1990 1990s

Justice, Search, Understanding, Parent

“There is a difference between constitutional government and judicial dictatorship. And I think it's time we remembered that our Constitution was not put together in order to establish the sovereignty of the judges, it was framed in order to guarantee the sovereignty of the people.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

CPAC 2004, January 24, 2004. http://renewamerica.us/archives/speeches/04_01_24cpac.htm. 2009

People, Thinking, Time

“Light in nature creates movement in color. The movement is provided by the relationships of uneven measures, of colors contrasts among themselves and constitutes Reality [In this quote Delaunay is referring to his series 'Window'-paintings', which he had started in 1912].”

Robert Delaunay (1885–1941) French painter

Quote in: 'Nous irons jusqu'au soleil', Delaunay; as cited in 'Futurism', ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 217
1915 - 1941

Color, Quotes, Nature, Reality

“[I]n the system of Copernicus there are found many and great inconveniences; for both the loading of the earth with triple motion is very incommodious, and the separation of the sun from the company of the planets, with which it has so many passions in common, is likewise a difficulty, and the introduction of so much immobility into nature, by representing the sun and stars as immovable, especially being of all bodies the highest and most radiant, and making the moon revolve about the earth in an epicycle, and some other assumptions of his, are the speculations of one who cares not what fictions he introduces into nature, provided his calculations answer. But if it be granted that the earth moves, it would seem more natural to suppose that there is no system at all, but scattered globes… than to constitute a system of which the sun is the centre. And this the consent of ages and of antiquity has rather embraced and approved. For the opinion concerning the motion of the earth is not new, but revived from the ancients… whereas the opinion that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable is altogether new… and was first introduced by Copernicus. …But if the earth moves, the stars may either be stationary, as Copernicus thought or, as it is far more probable, and has been suggested by Gilbert, they may revolve each round its own centre in its own place, without any motion of its centre, as the earth itself does… But either way, there is no reason why there should not be stars above stars til they go beyond our sight.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

Descriptio Globi Intellectualis (1653, written ca. 1612) Ch. 6, as quoted in "Description of the Intellectual Globe," The Works of Francis Bacon (1889) pp. 517-518, https://books.google.com/books?id=lsILAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA517 Vol. 4, ed. James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, Douglas Denon Heath.

Age, World, Way, Star

“The agitation in the North-West Territories would have been constitutional and would certainly be constitutional to-day, if, in my opinion, we had not been attacked.”

Louis Riel (1844–1885) Canadian politician

Address to Grand Jury (1885)

“The ancient Greek philosopher, Democritus, propounded an hypothesis of the constitution of matter, and gave the name of atoms to the ultimate unalterable parts of which he imagined all bodies to be constructed. In the 17th century, Gassendi revived this hypothesis, and attempted to develope it, while Newton used it with marked success in his reasonings on physical phenomena; but the first who formed a body of doctrine which would embrace all known facts in the constitution of matter, was Roger Joseph Boscovich, of Italy, who published at Vienna, in 1759, a most important and ingenious work, styled Theoria Philosophiæ Naturalis ad unicam legem virium, in Natura existentium redacta. This is one of the most profound contributions ever made to science; filled with curious and important information, and is well worthy of the attentive perusal of the modern student. In more recent days, the theory of Boscovich has received further confirmation and extension in the researches of Dalton, Joule, Thomson, Faraday, Tyndall, and others.”

Roger Joseph Boscovich (1711–1787) Croat-Italian physicist

Alfred Marshall Mayer, Lecture-notes on Physics (1868) Part 1 https://books.google.com/books?id=hqsLAAAAYAAJ

Imagination, Science, Success, Parting

“There is no difference whether a person stand at the centre of the earth or at the highest point of the ninth sphere… he is no further away from God in the one case, or nearer to Him in the other; those only approach Him who obtain a knowledge of Him; while those who remain ignorant of Him recede from Him. …I shall further elucidate… what constitutes the difference in our perception of God.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part I

God, Knowledge, Personality

“It is surprising that so great a mathematician as Dr. Smith could have entertained for a moment, an idea that the vibrations constituting different sounds should be able to cross each other in all directions, without affecting the same individual particles of air by their joint forces: undoubtedly they cross, without disturbing each other's progress; but this can be no otherwise effected than by each particle's partaking of both motions. If this assertion stood in need of any proof, it might be amply furnished by the phenomena of beats, and of the grave harmonics observed…”

Thomas Young (scientist) (1773–1829) English polymath

"Outlines of Experiments and Inquiries Respecting Sound and Light" (1800)

Idea

“We have had here within these few days some serious scenes, at which I am not surprised, because I foresaw not only a struggle between the two corps, which the constitution had organized, viz. the executive (so called) and the legislative. But I was convinced that the latter would get the better. Such is the natural, and indeed the necessary order of things. It is nevertheless a painful reflection, that one of the finest countries in the world should be so cruelly torn to pieces. The storrn which lately raged is a little subsided, but the winds must soon arise again, and perhaps from the same, perhaps from another quarter. But that is of but little consequence, since in every case we must expect a little rage and devastation. A man, attached to his fellow men, must see with the same distress the woes they suffer, whether arising from an army or from a mob, and whether those by whom they are inflicted speak French or German.”

Gouverneur Morris (1752–1816) American politician

1790s, First Letter to Thomas Pinckney (1792)

Men, Pain, World, Nature

“… (In) contemplating the political institutions of the United States, I lament that (if we remove the Bible from schools) we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them…For this Divine Book, above all others, favors that equality among mankind, that respect for just laws, and those sober and frugal virtues which constitute the soul of”

Benjamin Rush (1745–1813) American physician, educator, author

our government
Attributed to A Defence of the Use of the Bible in Schools; entries in parenthesis are insertions or modifications of the original quote.
Misattributed

Money, Pain, Books, School

“The exceptional nature of its limitations places in a strong light the general conception that liberty of the press, historically considered and taken up by the Federal Constitution, has meant, principally, although not exclusively, immunity from previous restraints or censorship.”

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) American judge

Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931).
Judicial opinions

Nature, Light, Strong

Quotes about constitution page 13

Quotes about constitution
page 13