Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2007-07-28 Jul 27, 2007Liberty is not a matter of words, but a positive and important condition of society. Its greatest safeguard after placing its foundations in a popular base, is in the checks and balances imposed on the public servants.~ James Fenimore CooperWith respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.~ James MadisonThat at any rate is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment.~ Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Jul 26, 2007My kind of loyalty was to one's country, not to its institutions or its officeholders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death.~ Mark TwainThat the sole object and only legitimate end of government is to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property, and when the government assumes other functions it is usurpation and oppression.~ Alabama, Declaration of Rights Article I Section 35Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.~ John Milton Jul 25, 2007The government of the absolute majority is but the government of the strongest interests; and when not effectively checked, is the most tyrannical and oppressive that can be devised... [To read the Constitution is to realize that] no free system was ever farther removed from the principle that the absolute majority, without check or limitation, ought to govern.~ John C. CalhounNo one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words 'no' and 'not' employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights.~ Rev. Edmund A. OpitzToo many Americans have twisted the sensible right to pursue happiness into the delusion that we are entitled to a guarantee of happiness. If we don't get exactly what we want, we assume someone must be violating our rights. We're no longer willing to write off some of life's disappointments to simple bad luck.~ Susan Jacoby Jul 24, 2007Can the real Constitution be restored? Probably not. Too many Americans depend on government money under programs the Constitution doesn't authorize, and money talks with an eloquence Shakespeare could only envy. Ignorant people don't understand The Federalist Papers, but they understand government checks with their names on them.~ Joseph SobranIt is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.~ Justice Robert H. JacksonThere is as much chance of repealing the 18th Amendment as there is for a humming-bird to fly to the planet Mars with the Washington Monument tied to its tail.~ Morris Sheppard Jul 23, 2007Our constitutions purport to be established by 'the people,' and, in theory, 'all the people' consent to such government as the constitutions authorize. But this consent of 'the people' exists only in theory. It has no existence in fact. Government is in reality established by the few; and these few assume the consent of all the rest, without any such consent being actually given.~ Lysander SpoonerLiberty cannot be caged into a charter or handed on ready-made to the next generation. Each generation must recreate liberty for its own times. Whether or not we establish freedom rests with ourselves.~ Florence Ellinwood AllenLiberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no Constitution, no court, can even do much to help it.~ Judge Learned Hand Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print