Quotes & Sayings About The Three Branches

Those who wrote the Constitution clearly understood that power is dangerous and needs to be limited by being separated - separated not only into the three branches of the national government but also separated as between the whole national government, on the one hand, and the states and the people on the other. — Thomas Sowell

I had started climbing trees about three years earlier, or rather, re-started; for I had been at a school that had a wood for its playground. We had climbed and christened the different trees (Scorpio, The Major Oak, Pegagsus), and fought for their control in territorial conflicts with elaborate rules and fealties. My father built my brother and me a tree house in our garden, which we had defended successfully against years of pirate attack. In my late twenties, I had begun to climb trees again. Just for the fun of it: no ropes, and no danger either.

In the course of my climbing, I learned to discriminate between tree species. I liked the lithe springiness of silver birch, the alder and the young cherry. I avoided pines -- brittle branches, callous bark -- and planes. And I found that the horse chestnut, with its limbless lower trunk and prickly fruit, but also its tremendous canopy, offered the tree-climber both a difficulty and an incentive. — Robert Macfarlane

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. That's set out in the Constitution. — Sandra Day O'Connor

The three branches of somaesthetics: the analytic study of the body's role in perception, experience, and action and thus in our mental, moral, and social life; the pragmatic study of methodologies to improve our body-mind functioning and thus expand our capacities of self-fashioning; and the practical branch that investigates such pragmatic methods by testing them on our own flesh in concrete experience and practice. — Richard Shusterman

Twenty-four hundred years ago, the ageing and grumpy Plato, in Book VII of the Laws, gave his definition of scientific illiteracy: Who is unable to count one, two, three, or to distinguish odd from even numbers, or is unable to count at all, or reckon night and day, and who is totally unacquainted with the revolution of the Sun and Moon, and the other stars . . . All freemen, I conceive, should learn as much of these branches of knowledge as every child in Egypt is taught when he learns the alphabet. In that country arithmetical games have been invented for the use of mere children, which they learn as pleasure and amusement ... I ... have late in life heard with amazement of our ignorance in these matters; to me we appear to be more like pigs than men, and I am quite ashamed, not only of myself, but of all Greeks. — Anonymous

Power is the great evil with which we are contending. We have divided power between three branches of government and erected checks and balances to prevent abuse of power. However, where is the check on the power of the judiciary? If we fail to check the power of the judiciary, I predict that we will eventually live under judicial tyranny. — Patrick Henry

The Mediterranean Sea with its various branches, penetrating far into the great Continent, forms the largest gulf of the ocean, and, alternately narrowed by islands or projections of the land and expanding to considerable breadth, at once separates and connects the three divisions of the Old World. — Theodor Mommsen

The advantage of this interpretation is that we can drop condition number three, the collapse of the wave function. Wave functions never collapse, they just continue to evolve, forever splitting into other wave functions, in a never-ending tree, with each branch representing an entire universe. The great advantage of the many worlds theory is that it is simpler than the Copenhagen interpretation: it requires no collapse of the wave function. The price we pay is that now we have universes that continually split into millions of branches. — Michio Kaku

That's the fundamental question. Do we have a check and balance system? Do we have three equal branches or do we have one supreme branch, not just the Supreme Court? That's the fundamental question. — Mike Huckabee

We are sworn to uphold the Constitution and law. And it has to be consistent and agreed upon with three branches of government - one can't overrule the other two. — Mike Huckabee

Our forefathers understood the dangers of consolidated power. This is why they provided for a separation of powers within the U.S. Government between the three branches. For the very same reason, the First Amendmants provides for a separation of church and state. — Barry McGowan

We've never had our injustices rectified from the top, from the president or Congress, or the Supreme Court, no matter what we learned in junior high school about how we have three branches of government, and we have checks and balances, and what a lovely system. No. The changes, important changes that we've had in history, have not come from those three branches of government. They have reacted to social movements. — Howard Zinn

As President Franklin Delano Roosevelt learned when he tried to pack the Supreme Court, the three branches of government are coequal for a reason. Neither the executive branch or the legislative branch should use the third branch to a pursue a partisan agenda. — Dan Pfeiffer

The Constitution is government's stop sign. It says, you - the three branches of government - can go so far and no farther. — Michele Bachmann

Last year in the region where we live part of the year there were violent windstorms, whole forests were leveled, two- and three-hundred-year-old trees torn up by the roots and tossed aside, houses sliced almost in half by the once-sheltering giants flung down through their roofs. Yesterday another storm, powerful but less so, took down no trees. The ground, though, is littered with leaves, as though autumn had arrived, but the leaves are still green, still alive, many torn away in clumps, with the twigs still intact that attached them to their branches. There's something disconsolate about them - the desiccated leaves of autumn always appear to have found the place to which they've been destined, but these don't seem to grasp what's happened to them: they lie on the ground at awkward angles, like things wounded that haven't completely given in to death and don't know yet they must. — C. K. Williams

How to check these unconstitutional invasions of rights by the Federal judiciary? Not by impeachment in the first instance, but by a strong protestation of both houses of Congress that such and such doctrines advanced by the Supreme Court are contrary to the Constitution; and if afterwards they relapse into the same heresies, impeach and set the whole adrift. For what was the government divided into three branches, but that each should watch over the others and oppose their usurpations? — Thomas Jefferson

Freedom can never be completely safeguarded by rules and laws. It is as much dependent on the courage, integrity, and responsibility of each of us as it is on these qualities in those who govern. Every trait in us and our leaders which points to passive submission to mere power betrays democratic freedom. In our American system of democratic government, three different powerful branches serve to check each other, the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary. Yet when there is no will to prevent encroachment of the power of one by any of the others, this system of checks, too, can degenerate. — Joost A.M. Meerloo

I believe the United States government is being
systematically taken over by a revolutionary network. They call themselves
Progressives, but we know they are really leftist radicals,
dedicated to the demise of the free-market capitalist system. They have
co-opted and bought off leaders of both the Republican and Democratic
parties, established a dominant role in all three branches of
government and thoroughly co-opted the mainstream media. — Ziad K. Abdelnour

The notion that the Supreme Court comes up with the ruling and that automatically subjects the two other branches to following it defies everything there is about the three equal branches of government. The Supreme Court is not the supreme branch. And for God's sake, it isn't the Supreme Being. It is the Supreme Court. — Mike Huckabee

Of the over 100,000 wildfires that happen in the U.S. each year, not a single one would get started without the fire triangle: Oxygen, heat and fuel. Fire needs all three to exist. It's like the three branches of our government: Legislative, judicial and executive. The fewer there are, the safer we are. — Stephen Colbert

I see, ... and with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides with which the federal branch of our government is advancing towards the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the States, and the consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic; and that, too, by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power ... It is but too evident that the three ruling branches of [the Federal government] are in combination to strip their colleagues, the State authorities, of the powers reserved by them, and to exercise themselves all functions foreign and domestic. — Thomas Jefferson

I believe that Americans should be deeply skeptical of government power. You cannot trust people in power. The founders knew that. That's why they divided power among three branches, to set interest against interest. — James Comey

How could the wind be so strong, so far inland, that cyclists
coming into the town in the late afternoon looked more like
sailors in peril? This was on the way into Cambridge, up Mill
Road past the cemetery and the workhouse. On the open
ground to the left the willow-trees had been blown, driven
and cracked until their branches gave way and lay about the
drenched grass, jerking convulsively and trailing cataracts of
twigs. The cows had gone mad, tossing up the silvery weeping
leaves which were suddenly, quite contrary to all their exper-
ience, everywhere within reach. Their horns were festooned
with willow boughs. Not being able to see properly, they
tripped and fell. Two or three of them were wallowing on
their backs, idiotically, exhibiting vast pale bellies intended by
nature to be always hidden. They were still munching. A scene
of disorder, tree-tops on the earth, legs in the air, in a university
city devoted to logic and reason. — Penelope Fitzgerald

Experience has instructed us that no skill in the science of government has yet been able to discriminate and define, with sufficient certainty, its three great provinces the legislative, executive, and judiciary; or even the privileges and powers of the different legislative branches. — James Madison

The courts are truly the least dangerous of the three branches of our government. — William Weld

The impossibility of separating the nomenclature of a science from the science itself, is owing to this, that every branch of physical science must consist of three things; the series of facts which are the objects of the science, the ideas which represent these facts, and the words by which these ideas are expressed. Like three impressions of the same seal, the word ought to produce the idea, and the idea to be a picture of the fact. — Antoine Lavoisier

The constitution has divided the powers of government into three branches, Legislative, Executive and Judiciary, lodging each with a distinct magistracy. The Legislative it has given completely to the Senate and House of Representatives. It has declared that the Executive powers shall be vested in the President, submitting special articles of it to a negative by the Senate, and it has vested the Judiciary power in the courts of justice, with certain exceptions also in favor of the Senate. — Thomas Jefferson

I'm looking for a Justice who appreciates the awesome responsibility that she will be given, if confirmed. A Justice who understands the gravity of the office and who respects the very different roles that the Constitution provides for each of the three branches of government. — Amy Klobuchar

On its rocky tip, dominating the scenery for miles around, stood he Villa dell'Ossevatore. Breathtakingly beautiful, it comprised three individual buildings and a single watchtower, roofed in terracotta tile and connected by stone bridges and loggias. Its lush gardens and lawns encircled the peninsula in steadily descending terraces, and a wide stone-built staircase hugged the rock all the way down to the waterline, terminating at a landing stage edged with balustrades. Higher up the hillside she saw the pergolas straining under the branches of ancient wisteria, and huge displays of azaleas and camellias. Ivy clung to the west-facing sides of the buildings and curled among its statues. — Stephen Lloyd Jones

The bushes are thick and smell like unripe bananas. Stiff branches and monster-sized leaves block the path, but I walk forward anyway, praying I don't end up falling off a cliff because I can't see where I'm going. I fully comprehend right now why those explorers on TV walk through the jungle dramatically whacking at leaves with three-foot-long machetes. I never thought I'd need one in LA. — Rachel A. Marks

In our Constitution governmental power is divided among three separate branches of the national government, three separate branches of State governments, and the peoples of the several States. — Robert W. Welch Jr.

After the war of course it will be like the start of spring, which is always so brilliantly sudden. The leaves will burst back onto the trees and close the gaps between the branches and we shall be startled - shan't we? - s we are startled at the end of every winter. We shall think: oh, I had quite forgotten there were three livable seasons. — Chris Cleave

Why the conservatives, who controlled all three branches of the federal government, were still so enraged
at respectful skeptics of the Iraq War, at gay couples who wanted to get married, at bland Al Gore and cautious Hillary Clinton, at endangered species and their advocates, at taxes and gas prices that were among the lowest of any industrialized nation, at a mainstream media whose corporate owners were themselves conservatives, at the Mexicans who cut their grass and washed their dishes
was somewhat mysterious to Walter. — Jonathan Franzen

Go to the adolescent who are smothered in family
Oh how hideous it is
To see three generations of one house gathered together!
It is like an old tree with shoots,
And with some branches rotted and falling. — Ezra Pound

I am familiar with the name Bassington-Bassington, sir. There are three branches of the Bassington-Bassington family - the Shropshire Bassington-Bassingtons, the Hampshire Bassington-Bassingtons, and the Kent Bassington-Bassingtons."
"England seems pretty well stocked up with Bassington-Bassingtons."
"Tolerably so, sir."
"No chance of a sudden shortage, I mean, what?"
"Presumably not, sir."
"And what sort of a specimen is this one?"
"I could not say, sir, on such short acquaintance."
"Will you give me a sporting two to one, Jeeves, judging from what you have seen of him, that this chappie is not a blighter or an excrescence?"
"No, sir. I should not care to venture such liberal odds. — P.G. Wodehouse

The Congress is a dysfunctional institution; it's broken. One of our three branches of government is broken. — Carl Bernstein

All of the patterns we've discussed of course exist in four dimensions rather than three, and the metaphors about braids, cables and trees, shouldn't be taken too literally. The key point is simply that you can be an unchanging pattern in spacetime-the specific details of this pattern are less important for the points we're making. This pattern is part of the mathematical structure that is our Universe, and the relations between different parts of the pattern are encoded in mathematical equations. As we saw in Chapter 8, Everett's quantum mechanics endows you with an even more interesting-but no less mathematical-structure, since a single you (the tree trunk) can split into many branches, each feeling that they're the one and only you
we'll return to this later. — Max Tegmark

The three branches of government number considerably more than three and are not, in any sense, 'branches' since that would imply that there is something they are all attached to besides self-aggrandizement and our pocketbooks ... Government is not a machine with parts; it's an organism. When does an intestine quit being an intestine and start becoming an asshole? — P. J. O'Rourke

Our earliest ancestors were descended from primates who thrived for millions of years in a treetop environment, and who in the process had evolved one of the most remarkable visual systems in nature. To move quickly and efficiently in such a world, they developed extremely sophisticated eye and muscle coordination. Their eyes slowly evolved into a full-frontal position on the face, giving them binocular, stereoscopic vision. This system provides the brain a highly accurate three-dimensional and detailed perspective, but is rather narrow. Animals that possess such vision - as opposed to eyes on the side or half side - are generally efficient predators like owls or cats. They use this powerful sight to home in on prey in the distance. Tree-living primates evolved this vision for a different purpose - to navigate branches, and to spot fruits, berries, and insects with greater effectiveness. They also evolved elaborate color vision. — Robert Greene

You know, when you get to the New World and you develop your three branches of government and you have a civil society, you can just jettison all the barbarism I recommended in the first books. — Sam Harris

When the three branches of government have failed to represent the citizenry and the mass of the media has failed to represent the citizenry, then the citizenry better represent the citizenry. — David Mamet

The Three Branches of Government: Money, Television, and Bullshit — P. J. O'Rourke

It is disconcerting to learn that while 73 percent of Americans can name the Three Stooges, only 42 percent can name the three branches of government.6 — Parker J. Palmer

It was approaching night, the conversation having taken up the better part of a day. Out of the fragile light a fourth perezoso spoke, the olders and wisest of them, who had to descend to the forest floor on business no more than once every two or three weeks, but then required many hours to accomplish what was necessary. He said, "The truth is this. Dropped casually from the safety of our beloved branches, our shit would be merely shit. Hard and shapely as our patient nature makes it, it is still shit. But when we plant it in the ground where the jaguar walks, it becomes precious as jewels. — Lon Otto

If you can feel it on your face, it's about three to five. Leaves in constant motion, six to eight or so. Small tree branches in constant motion, about ten. Large branches in constant motion, twelve to fifteen. Dorothy and Toto hurtling past thirty feet off the ground, time to go home. — Peter Lessler