I think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law — Barack Obama
The constitution is the ultimate custodian of social will and its making should be accorded all due diligence. — Mwai Kibaki
A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state. — Aristotle
Law is the embodiment of the moral sentiment of the people. — Sayings
The Constitution is the sole source and guaranty of national freedom. — Calvin Coolidge
A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government. — Alexander Hamilton
Law matters, because it keeps us safe, because it protects our most fundamental rights and freedoms, and because it is the foundation of our democracy. — Elena Kagan
What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws. — Alexander Hamilton
Liberal constitutional democracy is supposed to ensure that each citizen is free and equal and protected by basic rights and liberties. — John Rawls
The freedom of a government does not depend on the quality of its laws, but upon the power that has the right to create them. — Thaddeus Stevens
A Constitution is not the act of a Government, but of a people constituting a government, and a government without a constitution is a power without right. — Thomas Paine
Government itself is founded upon the great doctrine of the consent of the governed, and has its cornerstone in the memorable principle that men are endowed with inalienable rights. — Leland Stanford
There is a higher law than the law of government. That's the law of conscience. — Stokely Carmichael
The Constitution is only there to regulate matters. — Jacob Zuma
What Is Law Quotes
Persuade your fellow citizens it's a good idea and pass a law. That's what democracy is all about. It's not about nine superannuated judges who have been there too long, imposing these demands on society. — Antonin Scalia
The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy. — Benjamin Franklin
What we experience is our own concept of things. That is why no two people see quite the same world, and why, in many cases, different people see such different worlds. To put it another way, we make our own world by the way in which we think; for we really do live in a world of our own thoughts. — Emmet Fox
Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else!
Karma is the universal law of cause and effect. You reap what you sow. You get what you earn. You are what you eat. If you give love, you get love. Revenge returns itself upon the avenger. — Mary Browne
What you yourself hate, don't do to your neighbor. This is the whole law; the rest is commentary. Go and study. — Hillel the Elder
What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them? — Socrates
Laws control a lesser person, right conduct controls a greater one.
As freak legislation, the antitrust laws stand alone. Nobody knows what it is they forbid. — Isabel Paterson
I was an online service provider. It's not my job to police what people are uploading. It's the job of the content owners, and the law is very clear. If you create content, and you want to protect your copyrights, you have to do the work. — Kim Dotcom
What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature. — Voltaire
America has the laws and the material resources it takes to insure justice for all its people. What it lacks is the heart, the humanity. — Shirley Chisholm
Constitutional Government Quotes
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. — John Adams
There is nothing I dread so much as the division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our constitution. — John Adams
But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever. — John Adams
Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under god is acknowledged.
The American Constitution was not written to protect criminals; it was written to protect the government from becoming criminals. — Lenny Bruce
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it. — Abraham Lincoln
We have staked the whole future of our new nation, not upon the power of government; far from it. We have staked the future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments. — James Madison
To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today. — Thurgood Marshall
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. — Edward Bernays
If congress refuses to obey its own rules. If congress refuses to pass a balanced budget. If congress refuses to read the Bills. Then I say, sweep the place clean, limit their terms, and send them HOME! — Rand Paul
Let our government be like that of the solar system. Let the general government be like the sun and the states the planets, repelled yet attracted, and the whole moving regularly and harmoniously in several orbits. — John Dickinson
Constitutional Rights Quotes
We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution. — Abraham Lincoln
History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure. — Thurgood Marshall
Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. — George Washington
The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge right or make good decision. — Alexander Hamilton
My answer to the racial problem in America is to not deal with it at all. The founding fathers dealt with it when they made the Constitution. — James Meredith
One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights. — James K. Polk
Cruelty to animals is one of the most significant vices of a low and ignoble people. Wherever one notices them, they constitute a sign of ignorance and brutality which cannot be painted over even by all the evidence of wealth and luxury. — Alexander von Humboldt
All the rights secured to the citizens under the Constitution are worth nothing, and a mere bubble, except guaranteed to them by an independent and virtuous Judiciary. — Andrew Jackson
Fans have a constitutional right to expect success and have high expectations. — Jim Harbaugh
To consider judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. — Thomas Jefferson
Some Constitutional Quotes
Our republican system was meant for a homogeneous people. As long as blacks continue to live with the whites they constitute a threat to the national life. Family life may also collapse and the increase of mixed breed bastards may some day challenge the supremacy of the white man. — Abraham Lincoln
I'm tired of being considered some kind of criminal or dangerous throwback for no other reason than that I value, exercise, and defend my rights under the first ten Amendments to the United States Constitution. — L. Neil Smith
What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious. — Marcus Tullius Cicero
Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. — Thomas Jefferson
It matters enormously to a successful democratic society like ours that we have three branches of government, each with some independence and some control over the other two. Thats set out in the Constitution. — Sandra Day O'Connor
Where a government has come into power through some form of popular vote, fraudulent or not, and maintains at least an appearance of constitutional legality, the guerrilla outbreak cannot be promoted, since the possibilities of peaceful struggle have not yet been exhausted. — Che Guevara
Freedom is the default position. Everything the government does takes away some of our freedom... That's why we have a constitution, to restrain the government. — Andrew Napolitano
Terrorists can endanger some of us, but the war on terror endangers us all. How much more can the Constitution be diminished before it is completely replaced by arbitrary government power? — Paul Craig Roberts
That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn't even an enemy you could put your finger on. — Margaret Atwood
Popularity makes no law invulnerable to invalidation. Americans accept judicial supervision of their democracy - judicial review of popular but possibly unconstitutional statutes - because they know that if the Constitution is truly to constitute the nation, it must trump some majority preferences. — George Will
Unconstitutional Quotes
Whether you're gay, straight, you can't tell anybody who to love and who to marry. It's unconstitutional and it's morally wrong. — Andrew Dice Clay
The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg
One of the many ways the administrative state is unconstitutional: it destroys separation of powers. — Vivek Ramaswamy
When did it become unconstitutional to exclude homosexual couples from marriage? 1791? 1868, when the 14th Amendment was adopted? — Antonin Scalia
You dislike the emancipation proclamation; and, perhaps, would have it retracted. You say it is unconstitutional - I think differently. — Abraham Lincoln
The inherent right in the people to reform their government, I do not deny; and they have another right, and that is to resist unconstitutional laws without overturning the government. — Daniel Webster
The layman's constitutional view is that what he likes is constitutional and that which he doesn't like is unconstitutional. — Hugo Black
I just want everyone to know that 20,000 gun laws in the United States are unconstitutional. They infringe on your right to protect your life, the lives of your loved ones, and your property. — Michael Badnarik
I thought what the military was doing was unconstitutional. — Fred Korematsu
Calls to ban Muslims from entering the US are offensive and unconstitutional. — Mike Pence
Constitutional Monarchy Quotes
The Sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights -- the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn. And a king of great sense and sagacity would want no others. — Walter Bagehot
The State, every government whatever its form, character or color - be it absolute or constitutional, monarchy or republic, Fascist, Nazi or bolshevik - is by its very nature conservative, static, intolerant of change and opposed to it. — Emma Goldman
To decide once every few years which members of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people through parliament-this is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarism, not only in parliamentary- constitutional monarchies, but also in the most democratic republics. — Vladimir Lenin
Outside Independence Hall when the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended, Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it." — Benjamin Franklin
Louis XVI started to die on June 21st 1791. For his flight tore away the veil of that false constitutional monarchy, and once more confronted the Patriot party with the whole problem of the revolution's future. — Francois Furet
A lady asked Dr. Franklin Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy - "A republic," replied the Doctor, "if you can keep it." — Benjamin Franklin
The Tories in England had long imagined that they were enthusiastic about the monarchy, the church and beauties of the old English Constitution, until the day of danger wrung from them the confession that they are enthusiastic only about rent. — Karl Marx
Absolute monarchy,... is the easiest death, the true Euthanasia of the BRITISH constitution. — David Hume
The King can do no wrong; he cannot constitutionally be supposed capable of injustice. — John Nichol
I want self-determination. If that means having a constitutional monarchy as the first step, fine. But, in the end, people in Bahrain should have the right to vote and choose their president. A single family should not be allowed to rule on its own. — Zainab al-Khawaja
As long as judges tinker with the Constitution to 'do what the people want,' instead of what the document actually commands, politicians who pick and confirm new federal judges will naturally want only those who agree with them politically. — Antonin Scalia
Though liberty is established by law, we must be vigilant, for liberty to enslave us is always present under that very liberty. Our Constitution speaks of the "general welfare of the people." Under that phrase all sorts of excesses can be employed by lusting tyrants to make us bondsmen. — Marcus Tullius Cicero
Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. — Noah Webster
The fundamental difference between Islamic government, on the one hand, and constitutional monarchy and republics, on the other, is this: whereas the representatives of the people or the monarch in such regimes engage in legislation, in Islam the legislative power and competence to establish laws belong exclusively to God Almighty. — Ruhollah Khomeini
The Constitution is the origin and measure of legislative authority. It says to legislators, thus far ye shall go and no farther. Not a particle of it should be shaken; not a pebble of it should be removed. — William Paterson
If it were to be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws - the first growing out of the last . . . . A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government. — Alexander Hamilton
The most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it suffices for people to enter, weapons in hand, among a foreign people and expect to have its laws and constitution embraced. No one loves armed missionaries; the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies. — Maximilien Robespierre
Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution of your country and the government established under it. Leave evils which exist in some parts of the country, but which are beyond your control, to the all-wise direction of an over-ruling Providence. Perform those duties which are present, plain and positive. Respect the laws of your country. — Daniel Webster
From Watergate we learned what generations before us have known; our Constitution works. And during Watergate years it was interpreted again so as to reaffirm that no one - absolutely no one - is above the law. — Leon Jaworski
From Watergate we learned what generations before us have known; our Constitution works. And during Watergate years it was interpreted again so as to reaffirm that no one - absolutely no one - is above the law. — Leon Jaworski
A rioter with a Molotov cocktail in his hands is not fighting for civil rights any more than a Klansman with a sheet on his back and mask on his face. They are both more or less what the law declares them: lawbreakers, destroyers of constitutional rights and liberties and ultimately destroyers of a free America. — Lyndon B. Johnson
Each state, so that it does not abridge the great fundamental rights belonging, under the Constitution, to all citizens, may grant or withhold such civil rights as it pleases; all that is required is that, in this respect, its laws shall be impartial. — Lyman Trumbull
Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. — John Marshall Harlan
The principle of Parliamentary sovereignty means neither more nor less than this, namely, that Parliament thus defined has, under the English constitution, the right to make or unmake any law whatever; and, further, that no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament. — A. V. Dicey
I may finally call attention to the probability that the association of paternal and maternal chromosomes in pairs and their subsequent separation during the reducing division as indicated above may constitute the physical basis of the Mendelian law of heredity. — Walter Sutton
I don't think the Constitution is studied almost anywhere, including law schools. In law schools, what they study is what the court said about the Constitution. They study the opinions. They don't study the Constitution itself. — Robert Bork
What constitutes a state? . . . . . . . Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain. . . . . . . . And sovereign law, that state's collected will, O'er thrones and globes elate, Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill. — William Scott, 1st Baron Stowell
The virtue of a democratic system with a [constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech] is that it readily enables the people, over time, to be persuaded that what they took for granted is not so, and to change their laws accordingly. — Antonin Scalia
The constitution is either a superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it. It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. This is the very essence of judicial duty. — John Marshall
There exists ample authority under which population growth could be regulated...It has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society. — John Holdren
When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional right to free speech, it acts lawlessly; and the citizen can take matters into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all. — William O. Douglas
In the face of the turbulent changes in the situation in Hong Kong, we have effectively exercised the power of comprehensive control over the Special Administrative Region in accordance with the constitution and the Basic Law, implemented the principle of patriots governing Hong Kong and achieved a major turning point in the situation in Hong Kong from chaos to governance. — Xi Jinping
Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. — Samuel Adams
The function of the prosecutor under the federal Constitution is not to tack as many skins of victims as possible against the wall. His function is to vindicate the rights of the people as expressed in the laws and give those accused of crime a fair trial. — William O. Douglas
If I find the constitution being misused, I shall be the first to burn it. — B. R. Ambedkar
We enjoy freedom and the rule of law on which it depends, not because we deserve it, but because others before us put their lives on the line to defend it. — Thomas Sowell
An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation. — John Marshall
All our work, our whole life is a matter of semantics, because words are the tools with which we work, the material out of which laws are made, out of which the Constitution was written. Everything depends on our understanding of them. — Felix Frankfurter
No one - absolutely no one - is above the law. — Leon Jaworski
This understanding, underlying constitutional interpretation since the New Deal, reflects the Constitution's demands for structural flexibility sufficient to adapt substantive laws and institutions to rapidly changing social, economic, and technological conditions. — Stephen Breyer
The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was enacted in 1865 by martial law. The Fourteenth Amendment was enacted in 1868 by martial law. The Fifteenth Amendment was enacted in 1870 by martial law. Military occupation of the Southern states did not end until 1877, twelve years after the end of the Civil War. — Eustace Mullins
As Americans, we can take enormous pride in the fact that courage has been inspired by our own struggle for freedom, by the tradition of democratic law secured by our forefathers and enshrined in our Constitution. It is a tradition that says all men are created equal under the law and that no one is above it. — Barack Obama
In Conclusion
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