Constitutionally Quotes & Sayings

Is to be in love with blue, then, to be in love with a disturbance? Or is the love itself the disturbance? And what kind of madness is it anyway, to be in love with something constitutionally incapable of loving you back? — Maggie Nelson

Even those who, like me, believe that Roe v. Wade and the decisions elaborating on reproductive rights were constitutionally correct must recognize that, for many on the right, the sudden and relatively sloppily reasoned character of the abortion rulings ... did real damage to the Court's reputation as a relatively neutral arbiter of legal disputes. — Laurence Tribe

There's nothing in the First Amendment that even remotely talks about spending money for political contests, and to say that an individual can spend as much of his or her own money as he or she wants constitutionally without any limitation, I think is just absurd. — Arlen Specter

We ought to have more people who believe in constitutionally limited government. We have to have more people come to Congress with that mindset. I think we can make this a better place, if, when elections happen, we support candidates who share that philosophy. — Mike Lee

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

Let me repeat that: Our civilization is constitutionally incapable of reversing the annihilation of natural capital, or even slowing it down. Get used to that. When we really understand that, the project of reconceiving civilization itself will gain powerful impetus. — Charles Eisenstein

Are cans constitutionally iffy? Whenever, that is, we say that we can do something, or could do something, or could have done something, is there an if in the offing
suppressed, it may be, but due nevertheless to appear when we set out our sentence in full or when we give an explanation of its meaning? — J.L. Austin

Almost all gun control legislation is constitutionally fine. And if the court is right, then fundamentalism does not justify the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms. — Cass Sunstein

The writers I know seem constitutionally unable to allow themselves to be discouraged by failure. — William G. Tapply

Humanity is constitutionally lazy. — J.G. Holland

The last thing the Department of Homeland Security is about is infringing on anybody's constitutionally protected rights. — Janet Napolitano

In another letter he says: A man may be constitutionally meek as the lamb, constitutionally kind as the spaniel, constitutionally cheerful as the lark, and constitutionally modest as the owl; but these things are not sanctification. No sweet, humble, heavenly tempers, no sanctifying graces, are found but from the cross. — J.C. Ryle

The Ego, as noted, is simply the content of your PSM [Phenomenal Self Model] at this moment (your bodily sensations, your emotional state, your perceptions, memories, acts of will, thoughts). But it can become the Ego only because you are constitutionally unable to realize that all this is just the content of a simulation in your brain. It is not reality itself but an image of reality - and a very special one indeed. The Ego is a transparent mental image: You - the physical person as a whole - look right through it. You do not see it. You see with it. The Ego is a tool for controlling and planning your behavior and for understanding the behavior of others — Thomas Metzinger

True knowledge is power; but in order to feel at home with it, we must be constitutionally qualified. And if we are not, it is likely to give the soul such a twist as to deform it forever. — Ameen Rihani

Constitutionally, gentlemen, you have the president, the vice president and the secretary of state, in that order, and should the president decide he wants to transfer the helm to the vice president, he will do so. As for now, I'm in control here, in the White House, pending the return of the vice president and in close touch with him. If something came up, I would check with him, of course. — Alexander Haig

For the quirkyalone, there is no patience for dating just for the sake of not being alone. On a fine but by no means transcendent date we dream of going home to watch television. We would prefer to be alone with our own thoughts than with a less than perfect fit. We are almost constitutionally incapable of casual relationships. — Sasha Cagen

In a constitutionally ordered state, where laws are derived from broad principles of right and wrong and where those principles are enshrined and protected by agreed upon procedures and practices, it can never be in the long-term interest of the state or its citizens to flout those procedures at home or associate too closely overseas with the enemies of your founding ideals. — Tony Judt

Americans just want us to ... not be concerned if they can be constitutionally justified ... Why, if we had to do that we could not pass most of the laws we enact around here. — John Glenn

I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is "needed" before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' "interests," I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can. — Barry M. Goldwater

Iraqis will never forget that on 8 August 1990 Kuwait became part of Iraq legally, constitutionally and actually. It continued to do so until last night, when withdrawal began. — Saddam Hussein

Stand ipecacuanha, and which of them were constitutionally unable to retain that powerful drug. One who lay dead he ordered to be carried out. He spoke in the sharp, peremptory manner of a man who would take no nonsense, and the well men who obeyed his orders scowled malignantly. One muttered deep in his chest as he took the corpse by the feet. The white man exploded in speech and action. It cost him a painful effort, but his arm shot out, landing — Jack London

Philosophers, for the most part, are constitutionally timid, and dislike the unexpected. Few of them would be genuinely happy as pirates or burglars. Accordingly they invent systems which make the future calculable, at least in its main outlines. — Bertrand Russell

Proving "high crimes and misdemeanors" is necessary to make the case for presidential removal, but it is not sufficient. The politics takes precedence: The public must reach the conclusion that the constitutionally subversive nature of the impeachable offenses renders it intolerable to permit the president to continue in power; and the public must make its representatives understand that failing to act on that conclusion will shorten their cherished Washington careers. — Andrew McCarthy

Collective states are constitutionally incapable of reliably producing anything but corpses. — L. Neil Smith

The notion of human right builds on our shared humanity. These rights are not derived from the citizenship of any country, or the membership of any nation, but are presumed to be claims or entitlements of every human being. They differ, therefore, from constitutionally created rights guaranteed for specific people. — Amartya Sen

It is your business to rise up and preserve the Union and liberty, for yourselves, and not for me. I desire they shall be constitutionally preserved. — Abraham Lincoln

So far, everything I've worked on has been deeply connected to reality. I'm not constitutionally opposed to working on something completely fictional, either. It just happens that a lot of these stories have crossed my path in a way that makes them intriguing, but I'm up for anything that's intellectually engaging. — Andrew Jarecki

If discrimination based on race is constitutionally permissible when those who hold the reins can come up with "compelling" reasons to justify it, then constitutional guarantees acquire an accordionlike quality. — William O. Douglas

Constitutionally I don't exist. — Prince Philip

I'm constitutionally incapable of working on planes or trains, and airports are definitely out. — Damon Galgut

While it [tolerance] is more or less quietly and constitutionally withdrawn from the opposition, it is made compulsory behavior with respect to established policies. — Herbert Marcuse

I was the legal counsel in the effort to amend the Virginia Constitution to give Virginians the right to hunt and fish constitutionally, and we are one of the few states in the country to protect that right. — Tim Kaine

Our ignorance of the Islamic State is in some ways understandable: It is a hermit kingdom; few have gone there and returned. Baghdadi has spoken on camera only once. But his address, and the Islamic State's countless other propaganda videos and encyclicals, are online, and the caliphate's supporters have toiled mightily to make their project knowable. We can gather that their state rejects peace as a matter of principle; that it hungers for genocide; that its religious views make it constitutionally incapable of certain types of change, even if that change might ensure its survival; and that it considers itself a harbinger of - and headline player in - the imminent end of the world. — Anonymous

Are we reading the Constitution and pondering it? Are we aware of its principles? Are we abiding by these principles and teaching them to others? Could we defend the Constitution? Can we recognize when a law is constitutionally unsound? Do we know what the prophets have said about the Constitution and the threats to it? — Ezra Taft Benson

Almost from the moment votes are counted, lame-duck chief executives invariably recede into superfluity, but Lincoln's hapless predecessor, James Buchanan, made procrastination into an art form. He could not have excused himself from responsibility at a more portentous moment, or left his successor with graver problems to address once he was constitutionally entitled to do so. — Harold Holzer

England has collapsed politically, monetarily, constitutionally, and economically. It is not reasonable to demand from them to trigger Article 50. — Mark Rutte

It would be wholly wrong constitutionally for the unelected House of Lords to do anything, to kill anything of a financial nature that has been through the House of Commons not once but twice. — Nigel Lawson

People expected too much, pushed themselves too hard, and therefore brought strains upon their minds that they were constitutionally incapable of withstanding. — Joshua Wolf Shenk

The King can do no wrong; he cannot constitutionally be supposed capable of injustice. — John Nichol

I want to lengthen, not shorten, my attention span, and most of the material splendors of the twenty-first century bully me in the opposite direction. The fault is mine, I'll admit. I'm too slow-witted, reluctant to evolve, constitutionally unable to get with the program. I can't afford the newest gadgets and I'm not a natural multitasker. — Phillip Connors

The firm of Brotherhood's believed in ideal conditions for their staff. It was their pet form of practical Christianity; in addition to which, it looked very well in their advertising literature and was a formidable weapon against the trade unions. Not, of course, that Brotherhoods' had the slightest objection to trade unions as such. They had merely discovered that comfortable and well-fed people are constitutionally disinclined for united action of any sort - a fact which explains the asinine meekness of the income-tax payer. — Dorothy L. Sayers

The mere state of being without funds is a neutral fact constitutionally an irrelevance, like race, creed, or color. — Robert H. Jackson

Can you tell me why I'm here?" "You ran out of sheep to fuck and went looking for some action?" "Gods, I love Camorri. Constitutionally incapable of doing things the easy way." Cortessa slapped Jean hard enough to make his eyes water. "Try again. Why am I here?" "You heard," Jean gasped, "that we'd finally discovered the cure for being born with a face like a stray dog's ass." "No. If that were true you would have used it." Cortessa — Scott Lynch

I am constitutionally competent to contest the elections. — Benazir Bhutto

Monty Python is like catnip for nerds. Once you get them started quoting it, they are constitutionally incapable of feeling depressed. — Kevin Hearne

In sum, the Court's conclusion that a constitutionally adequate recount is impractical is a prophecy the Court's own judgment will not allow to be tested. Such an untested prophecy should not decide the Presidency of the United States. I dissent. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

If there was a way to discourage trash constitutionally, I would sure as heck take a hard look at it. I don't think there is. So I don't think there's a choice here. — Ed Rendell

The bad parts of the statute are not judicially severable, I consider, from the rest of its provisions that deal with imprisonment. Their roots are entangled too tenaciously in the surrounding soil for a clean extraction to be feasible. The conclusion to which I accordingly come is that we are left with no option but to declare those provisions as a whole to be constitutionally invalid on account of their objectionable overbreadth. — John Didcott

Charles was constitutionally incapable of being a constitutional monarch. — Simon Schama

Marriage equality - I think that it's a constitutionally guaranteed right. Let's end the drug wars. Let's balance the federal budget, and that means reforming the entitlements - Medicaid, Medicare. — Gary Johnson

The truth is that I'm constitutionally incapable of doing an ordinary job. — Dylan Moran

By the Obama administration's reasoning, it would be constitutionally permissible to make Americans purchase nearly any product (broccoli, gym membership) that improved their health and thereby contributed to lower health-care costs. — John Cornyn

The Internet is a far more speech-enhancing medium than print, the village green, or the mails. Because it would necessarily affect the Internet itself, the [Communications Decency Act] would necessarily reduce the speech available for adults on the medium. This is a constitutionally intolerable result. — Stewart Dalzell

I must say this concerning the great controversy over rifles and shotguns. The only thing I've ever said is that in areas where the government has proven itself either unwilling or unable to defend the lives and the property of Negroes, it's time for Negroes to defend themselves. Article number two of the constitutional amendments provides you and me the right to own a rifle or a shotgun. It is constitutionally legal to own a shotgun or a rifle. — Malcolm X

If one is going to change the definition of marriage to be, quote, 'same sex,' then there is absolutely no valid argument constitutionally or rhetorically you can make against multiple people getting married. These are radical social changes. — Gary Bauer

The true test is, whether the object be of a local character, and local use; or, whether it be of general benefit to the states. If it be purely local, congress cannot constitutionally appropriate money for the object. But, if the benefit be general, it matters not, whether in point of locality it be in one state, or several; whether it be of large, or of small extent. — Joseph Story

For the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected. — Potter Stewart

We can constitutionally extirpate slavery at this time. — Robert Dale Owen

The idea is to help patients more clearly assess the contents of their thought stream, teaching them to note and correct the conceptual errors termed "cognitive distortions" that characterize psychopathological thinking. Somone in the grips of such thinking would, for instance, regard a half-full glass not merely as half-empty but also fatally flawed, forever useless, constitutionally incapable of ever being full, and fit only to be discarded. By the mid-1980s, cognitive therapy was being used more and more in combination with behavioral therapy for OCD, and it seemed naturally compatible with a mindfulness-based perspective. If I could show that a cognitive-behavioral approach, infused with mindful awareness, could be marshaled against the disease, and if successful therapy were accompanied by changes in brain activity, then it would represent a significant step toward demonstrating the causal efficacy of mental activity on neural circuits. — Jeffrey M. Schwartz

Nothing is so beneficial to a young author as the advice of a man whose judgment stands constitutionally at the freezing-point. — Douglas William Jerrold

The law is the survival of the fittest ... The law is not the survival of the 'better' or the 'stronger,' if we give to those words any thing like their ordinary meanings. It is the survival of those which are constitutionally fittest to thrive under the conditions in which they are placed; and very often that which, humanly speaking, is inferiority, causes the survival. — Herbert Spencer

You are the first President to whom the opportunity was ever offered constitutionally to inaugurate such a day. If you fail us now, you may be the last. — Jay Alan Sekulow

We need to cut these things that aren't constitutionally mandated, that are kind of on the periphery, the fluffery, like NPR and National Endowment for the Arts. Those are obvious. — Sarah Palin

That's the problem with running away, said the little voice. No matter where you go, you have to take yourself with you; and if yourself is constitutionally incapable of leaving well enough alone and not worrying if the rest of the world is weirder than ferret ragout, where the hell is the point? — Tom Holt

Specifically, the reservation of sovereignty to the people of the states in matters not governed by federal law is constitutionally defined and permanently enshrined in the 10th Amendment. — Dick Thornburgh

She was constitutionally unable to endure any man being in love with any woman not herself ... — Margaret Mitchell

My atoms, moreover, are arranged to make me constitutionally inclined to believe that where there's smoke there's usually strawberry Jello, seldom fire ... — J.D. Salinger

The expectation that every neurotic phenomenon can be cured may, I suspect, be derived from the layman's belief that the neuroses are something quite unnecessary which have no right whatever to exist. Whereas in fact they are severe, constitutionally fixed illnesses, which rarely restrict themselves to only a few attacks but persist as a rule over long periods throughout life. — Sigmund Freud

For Zola, as for Huysmans, nature itself is uncanny because it is the domain of the feminine, a domain that is constitutionally defective, lacking, even pathological. — Charles Bernheimer

Introverts, in contrast, are constitutionally programmed to downplay reward - to kill their buzz, you might say - and scan for problems. "As soon they get excited," says Newman, "they'll put the brakes on and think about peripheral issues that may be more important. Introverts seem to be specifically wired or trained so when they catch themselves getting excited and focused on a goal, their vigilance increases. — Susan Cain

Clinton's egregious act of self-indulgence was outdone by an impeachment based not on constitutionally required high crimes and misdemeanors but on a vindictive determination to bring down a president who had offended self-righteous moralists eager to put a different political agenda in place. — Robert Dallek

Our constitutionally-based criminal justice system places a high value on protecting the innocent. Among its central tenets is the idea that it is better to let a guilty person go free than to convict someone without evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. — Robert Shapiro

The question about those aromatic advertisements that perfume companies are having stitched into magazines these days is this: under the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment, is smelling up the place a constitutionally protected form of expression? — Calvin Trillin

The federal government is a machine designed to increase its control over the lives of average Americans. It is constantly probing here, pushing there, and generally increasing its control. Without a philosophically sound, constitutionally based political party opposing that process, it is going to continue to do so with impunity. — Ed Crane

The insurance companies involved had all claimed that this was, by any reasonable standards, an act of God. But, Dirk had argued, which god? Britain was constitutionally a Christian monotheistic state, and therefore any "act of God" defined in a legal document must refer to the Anglican chap in the stained glass and not to some polytheistic thug from Norway. — Douglas Adams

The justices have constitutionally protected obscenity in libraries, filth over cable television, and now unlimited internet pornography. — Phyllis Schlafly

Speech within the kingdom of Amazonia - run by its sovereign Jeff Bezos and his board of directors with help from the wise counsel and judgment of the company's executives - is not protected in the same way that speech is constitutionally protected in America's public spaces. — Rebecca MacKinnon

However, the sovereignty of the states is constitutionally defined and recognized, while the powers of the local government in Puerto Rico are defined by, and subject to alteration under, federal statutory law. — Dick Thornburgh

I am the constitutionally and legitimately elected sheriff, and I absolutely refuse to surrender my responsibility to the federal government. — Joe Arpaio

Violence is not a constitutionally protected right. Damaging property is not a constitutionally protected right; inciting violence is not a constitutionally protected right. — Francis G. Slay

In keeping Americans ill-educated, ill-informed and constitutionally ignorant, the education establishment has been the politician's major and most faithful partner. It is in this sense that American education can be deemed a success. — Walter E. Williams

Democratization is not democracy; it is a slogan for the temporary liberalization handed down from an autocrat. Glasnost is not free speech; only free speech, constitutionally guaranteed, is free speech. — Gail Sheehy

Conservatism is constitutionally opposed to public reason, and this explains the abandon with which so many conservative pundits embrace flagrant simulations of reason, constructed through the methods of public relations, and exhibit so little regard for the real thing. — Philip E. Agre

Blatant attempts to attack a constitutionally guaranteed right and a law-abiding industry. — Rob Bishop

I will appoint men and women to the Federal judiciary who share my view of unborn children as constitutionally protected and who will unhesitatingly vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. If nominated by my party, I will select my running mate from among a list of men and women fully committed to protection of the unborn. — Gary Bauer

By its attempt to regulate and govern the private businesses, which are miscalled public accommodations in the bill, this proposal would inject the Government into the most sensitive areas of human contractual relations-agreements for personal services. In so doing, constitutional interpretations of long standing are being swept aside in favor of tortuous rationalizations which studiously ignore the constitutionally-forbidden imposition of involuntary servitude on citizens — Strom Thurmond

After 100 years of trying, finally we passed health care for all Americans as a right for all - not just a privilege for a few. It honored the vows of our Founders: Of life, a healthier life; liberty; the freedom to pursue our own happinesses ... We knew that ... this bill was ironclad constitutionally. — Nancy Pelosi

The United States has collapsed economically, socially, politically, legally, constitutionally, and environmentally. — Paul Craig Roberts

We have got to protect privacy rights. We have got to protect our God-given, constitutionally protected civil liberties, and we are not doing that in the federal government. The Department of Homeland Security, as well as the TSA, is a great culprit in being a Gestapo-type organization. — Paul Broun

Prior to Roe , ... whether one could obtain a legal abortion in the face of an unwanted pregnancy was a crap shoot. For 30 years now, it's been a constitutionally guaranteed right — David Garrow

We repeat and again reaffirm that neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person 'to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.' Neither can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against nonbelievers, and neither can aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs. — Hugo Black

I have had many patients who expected themselves to perform in ways which were constitutionally impossible. We were not created equal except for the respect which we may demand for who we are. Sorting the possible from the impossible empowers these people to give their energies to the things they can do, and to leave to others those which they are inherently unprepared. — Leon Hammer

So when introverts assume the observer role, as when they write novels, or contemplate unified field theory- or fall quiet at dinner parties- they're not demonstrating a failure or a lack of energy. They're simply doing what they're constitutionally suited for (237). — Susan Cain

As a matter of law the states recognized no constraints on their legislative scope other than those that were self-imposed. Even where particular state constitutions paid ideological lip service to constraints deriving from religious or natural law doctrines, they reserved to some constitutionally-defined body or person the right to interpret these doctrines. — Immanuel Wallerstein

But unlike Jack, Bobby had not been groomed to be a candidate, and he was constitutionally incapable of the flattery and false praise with which politicians like Johnson got others to do their daily bidding. — Jonathan Darman

... investors are constitutionally averse to buying into a troubled situation. — Benjamin Graham

I am (thank God!) constitutionally superior to reason. — Wilkie Collins