Legislating Quotes & Sayings

If we are in earnest about giving the Union energy and duration we must abandon the vain project of legislating upon the States in their collective capacities. — Alexander Hamilton

You cannot have man legislating and playing God in Parliament, and at the same time believe that Allah is the only legislator. — Anjem Choudary

Ten years after the first commercial train service began operating between Liverpool and Manchester, in 1830, the first train timetable was issued. The trains were much faster than the old carriages, so the quirky differences in local hours became a severe nuisance. In 1847, British train companies put their heads together and agreed that henceforth all train timetables would be calibrated to Greenwich Observatory time, rather than the local times of Liverpool, Manchester or Glasgow. More and more institutions followed the lead of the train companies. Finally, in 1880, the British government took the unprecedented step of legislating that all timetables in Britain must follow Greenwich. For the first time in history, a country adopted a national time and obliged its population to live according to an artificial clock rather than local ones or sunrise-to-sunset — Yuval Noah Harari

We have too much legislating by clamor, by tumult, by pressure. Representative government ceases when outside influence of any kind is substituted for the judgment of the representative. — Calvin Coolidge

Quote of the Day The late Dr. Adrian Rogers (1931-2005) offered the following observation several years ago and it bears poignant significance today: You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the rich out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply the wealth by dividing it. — Adrian Rogers

Deadline for Iraqi withdrawal is legislating defeat. — Newt Gingrich

Friend, you cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. And what one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government can't give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody. And when half of the people get the idea they don't have to work because the other half's going to take care of them, and when the other half get the idea it does no good to work because somebody's going to get what I work for. That, dear friend, is about the end of any nation. — Adrian Rogers

I don't rule out the possibility of legislating a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, a market-based mechanism, — Julia Gillard

Anarchism is in reality the ideal of political and social science, and also the ideal of religion. It is the ideal to which Jesus Christ looked forward. Christ founded no church, established no state, gave practically no laws, organized no government and set up no external authority, but he did seek to write on the hearts of men God's law and make them self-legislating. — R. Heber Newton

We are aware that it is said, that woman is virtually represented in Parliament, her interests being the same as those of man; but the many laws, which have been obliged to be passed to protect them from their nearest male relatives, are a sufficient answer ... They are evidently the production of men legislating for their own most obvious interest ... without the slightest reference to the injustice they were committing against women. — Marion Kirkland Reid

What I don't like is judges legislating from the bench. And as president of the United States, I will appoint justices who uphold the Constitution and who don't see themselves as a super legislature. — Michele Bachmann

Lawmakers who interfere with commerce and the normal creation of jobs in an economy run the risk of doing harm rather than good. Unintended consequences from regulating or legislating to achieve a goal can occur and cause havoc in the markets or an economy. — Mark Skousen

What is most important is to cease legislating for all lives what is liveable only for some, and similarly, to refrain from proscribing for all lives what is unlivable for some. — Judith Butler

Neither in tailoring nor in legislating does man proceed by mere accident. — Thomas Carlyle

If our goal in legislating against carbon releases is not simply punishing the West and its power companies but truly trying to reduce the accumulation of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, the main event will be in the developing world. We must use the smartest possible economics, and that means investing in China and India. — Gregg Easterbrook

One of the litmus tests for judicial conservatism is the idea of judicial restraint - that courts should give substantial deference to the decisions of the political process. When Congress and the president enact a law, conservatives generally say, judges should avoid 'legislating from the bench.' — Jeff Greenfield

Introducing a technology is not a neutral act
it is profoundly revolutionary. If you present a new technology to the world you are effectively legislating a change in the way we all live. You are changing society, not some vague democratic process. The individuals who are driven to use that technology by the disparities of wealth and power it creates do not have a real choice in the matter. So the idea that we are giving people more freedom by developing technologies and then simply making them available is a dangerous illusion. — Karl Schroeder

I do not believe it is the function of the judiciary to step in and change the law because the times have changed. I do well understand the difference between legislating and judging. As a judge, it is not my function to develop public policy. — Sandra Day O'Connor

Drones are a tool, not a policy. The policy is assassination. While every president since Gerald Ford has upheld an executive order banning assassinations by U.S. personnel, Congress has avoided legislating the issue or even defining the word assassination. — Jeremy Scahill

Women have worked hard; starved in prison; given of their time and lives that we might sit in the House of Commons and take part in the legislating of this country. — Ellen Wilkinson

Even what may have seemed, in retrospect, like minor quibbles - over the particular wording of sharia clauses, for example - reflected fundamental divides over the boundaries, limits, and purpose of the nation-state. For liberals, certain rights and freedoms are, by definition, nonnegotiable. They envision the state as a neutral arbiter. Meanwhile, even those Islamists who have little interest in legislating morality see the state as a promoter of a certain set of religious and moral values, through the soft power of the state machinery, the educational system, and the media. For them, these conservative values are not ideologically driven but represent a self-evident popular consensus around the role of religion in public life. The will of the people, particularly when it coincides with the will of God, takes precedence over any presumed international human rights norms. — Shadi Hamid

A man should always have these two rules in readiness. First, to do only what the reason of your ruling and legislating faculties suggest for the service of man. Second, to change your opinion whenever anyone at hand sets you right and unsettles you in an opinion, but this change of opinion should come only because you are persuaded that something is just or to the public advantage, not because it appears pleasant or increases your reputation. — Marcus Aurelius

It is impossible to legislate without legislating morality. Try to think of a law that is not based on a moral idea; you won't be able to do it. — J. Budziszewski

There are certain things in gun control that have a certain public appeal, but when you're legislating you need to look at the research on what works, what doesn't, and what really has an impact, recognizing you're never going to do away entirely with gun violence — Kim Campbell

You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. — Adrian Rogers

What you deny to others will be denied to you, for the plain reason that you are always legislating for yourself; all your words and actions define the world you want to live in. — Thaddeus Golas

Incumbents are safe, but party majorities are not. This fosters symbolic votes, message politics and little serious legislating in Congress. — Thomas E. Mann

The mindset of legislating for the betterment of society guarantees the growth of the beast ... Politicians see government as a solution but the people see government as part of the problem. Beastly bureaucracy is born out of good intentions married to poor solutions. Only when politicians realize what constituents already know will the true problem even be addressed much less solved. — R. Lee Wrights

When a legislature decides to steal some of our rights and plans to use police force to accomplish it, what's the real difference between them and the thief? Darn little! They hide behind the excuse that they're legislating democratically. The fact they do it by a majority vote has no moral significance whatsoever. Numerical might does not constitute right, no more than a lynch mob can justify its act because a majority participated. — H. L. Richardson

For two thousand years, the Church has guided the development of music, carefully legislating to fuse artistic talent and aesthetic beauty with the demands of the Faith. — Richard Morris

I gravitate toward the law, I think, certainly more times than not, because it's our best mechanism for legislating human behavior, and morality, and ethics. — David E. Kelley

Legislating morality grows big government immensely, and helps fashion the noose the government will use to ultimately hang you by. — A.E. Samaan