Enhancing Quotes

There exists a law, not written down anywhere, but inborn in our heart; a law that comes to us
not by training or custom or reading, but from nature itself. If our lives are endangered, any and
every method of protecting ourselves is morally right.
- Cicero
If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be
attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.
- Aristotle
The basis of a democratic state is liberty.
- Aristotle
When a tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to
fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may
require a leader.
- Plato
The people always have some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.
- Plato
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by
your inferiors.
- Plato
Of all the forms of governmenttyranny is the worstSo men flee from tyrants as they would
from a cruel beast; nor is it any different to be subject to a tyrant or a savage beast.
- Thomas Aquinas
Wherever law ends, tyranny begins.
- John Locke
When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person or body, there can
be no liberty, becausethe same monarch or senate might enact tyrannical laws to execute
them in a tyrannical manner.
- Montesquieu
I disapprove of what you say, but I defend to the death your right to say it.
- Voltaire
Experience has shown that even under the best forms of government, those entrusted with
power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
- Francis Bacon
What is the state without justice but highway robbery on a grad scale.
- St. Augustine

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

- Lord Acton
Without Justices of the Supreme Court, the Constitution would be a dead letter. Their power is
enormous, but it is the power of public opinion. The Justices are all powerful as long as the
people respect the law; but they would be impotent against popular neglect or contempt of the
law.
- Alexis de Tocqueville
The power vested in the American courts of justice of pronouncing a statute to be
unconstitutional forms one of the most powerful barriers that have ever been devised against the
tyrannies of political assemblies.
- Alexis de Tocqueville
Democracy is timelessly human, and timelessness always implies a certain amount of potential
youthfulness.
- Thomas Mann
Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.
- Kahlil Gibran
A camel is a horse designed by committee.
- Sir Alec Issigonis
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.
- Mahatma Gandhi
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil in its worst state, an intolerable one.
- Thomas Paine
These are the times that try mens souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in
this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now deserves the love
and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell is not easily conquered; yet we have this
consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
- Thomas Paine
I fear three newspapers more than a hundred bayonets.
- Napoleon Bonaparte
To succeed in politics, it is often necessary to rise above your principles.
- Anonymous
I heartily accept the motto, that the government is best which governs the least.
- Henry Davis Thoreau
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
- Edmund Burke

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.
- Edmund Burke
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence. It is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a
fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.
- George Washington
The court is the law. Courts interpret law. Therefore, courts interpret the Constitution.
- John Marshall
What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that its
people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The tree of liberty must be refreshed
from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
- Thomas Jefferson
I have sworn upon the alter of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the
mind of man.
- Thomas Jefferson
Does the government fear us? Or do we fear the government? When the people fear the
government tyranny has found victory. The federal government is our servant, not our master!
- Thomas Jefferson
The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.
- Thomas Jefferson
Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or
newspapers without government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
- Thomas Jefferson
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will beThe
people cannot be safe without information. Where the press is free and every man is able to read,
all is safe.
- Thomas Jefferson
That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.
- Thomas Jefferson
One hundred and seventy-three despots would surely be as oppressive as onean elective
despotism is not the government we fought for.
- Thomas Jefferson
Equal rights for all, special privileges for none.
- Thomas Jefferson
To be prepared for war is one of the most effective ways of preserving peace.
- George Washington

That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe just liberty
of the press, or the rights of conscience or to prevent the people of the United States, who are
peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.
- Samuel Adams
If you love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating
contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch
down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
- Samuel Adams
They that give up liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither.
- Benjamin Franklin
The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the
people of almost every other nation. Not withstanding the military establishments in the several
kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments
are afraid to trust their people with arms.
- James Madison
In republics, the great danger is that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the
minority.
- James Madison
But above all else, the First Amendment means that the government has no power to restrict
expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter or content.
- Justice Thurgood Marshall
The most stringent protection of free speech would not sufficiently protect a man from falsely
shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.
- Justice Holmes
Men love power. Give all power to the many and they will oppress the few. Give all power to
the few and they will oppress the many.
- Alexander Hamilton
The way to secure liberty is to place it in the peoples hands, that is, to give them the power at
all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice.
- John Adams
It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its
rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part.
- James Madison; Federalist 51
If the majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure.
- James Madison; Federalist 51

But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections of human nature? If men were
angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor
internal controls on government would be necessary.
- James Madison; Federalist 51
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies
in this; you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place,
oblige it to control itself.
- James Madison; Federalist 51
We may define a republic to bea government which derives all its powers directly or
indirectly from the great body of the people and is administered by persons holding their offices
during pleasure for a limited period, or during good behavior.
- James Madison; Federalist 39
The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and the judiciary, in the same hands,
whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be
pronounced the very definition of tyranny
- James Madison; Federalist 47
Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is
essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the
steady administration of the laws; to the protection of property, to the security of liberty against
the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and anarchy
- Alexander Hamilton; Federalist 70
The judiciary on the contrary, has no influence over the sword or the purse, no direction either
of the strength or of the wealth of society, and can take no active resolution whatever. It may
truly be said to have neither force nor will, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend
upon the aid of the executive arm, even for the efficacy of its judgment.
- Alexander Hamilton
The people, sir, are a great beast.
- Alexander Hamilton
In all cases where power is to be conferred, the point first to be decided is whether such a
power be necessary to the public good.
- James Madison
The proposed Constitutionis, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a
composition of both.
- James Madison
How could a readiness for war in time of peace be safely prohibited, unless we could prohibit
in like manner the preparations and establishments of every hostile nation.
- James Madison; Federalist 41
The safety of the people of America against dangers from foreign force depends not only on
their forbearing to give just causes of war to other nations, but also on their placing and
continuing themselves in such a situation as not to invite hostility or insult.

John Jay; Federalist 4

Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed.
- Declaration of Independence
We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.
- Benjamin Franklin
Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel.
Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force,
you are inevitably ruined.
- Patrick Henry
Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it,
Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give
me death!
- Patrick Henry
Democracy is a process, not a static condition. It is becoming, rather than being. It can be easily
lost, but is never finally won.
- William Hastie
The people made the Constitution, and the people can unmake it. It is a creature of their own
will, and lives only by their will.
- John Marshall
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of a democracy.
- Abraham Lincoln
Without the Constitution and the Union, we could not have attained the result; but even these
are not the primary cause of our great prosperity. There is something back of these, entwining
itself more closely about the human heart. That something, is the principle of Liberty to all the
principle that clears the path for all gives hope to all and, by consequence, enterprise, and
industry to all.
- Abraham Lincoln
Interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a glorious liberty document.
- Frederick Douglas
The principle on which this country was founded and by which it has always been governed is
that Americanism is a matter of mind and heart; Americanism is not, and never was, a matter of
race and ancestry. A good American is one who is loyal to this country and to our creed of liberty
and democracy.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
The only title in our democracy superior to that of the President, the title of citizen.
- Harry S. Truman

A right is not what someone gives you; its what no one can take from you.
- Ramsey Clark
An American is a person who does things because they havent been done before.
- Mark Twain
The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its
continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling
nationalitieseach preserving it separate nationally.
- Theodore Roosevelt
America is not like a blanket one piece of unbroken cloth, the same color, the same texture,
the same size. America is more like a quilt many patches, many pieces, many colors, many
sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread.
- Jesse Jackson
The only foes that threaten America are the enemies at home, and these are ignorance,
superstition, and incompetence.
- Elbert Hubbard
Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it.
The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of
governmental power, not the increase of it.
- Woodrow Wilson
The question of the relation of the states to the federal government is the cardinal question of
our constitutional systemIt cannot, indeed, be settled by the opinion of any one generation.
- Woodrow Wilson
It is better that ten guilty escape than one innocent suffer.
- William Blackstone
In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the lawThat would lead to anarchy. An
individual who breaks a law that his conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the
penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is
in reality expressing the highest respect for law.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of
mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all
indirectly.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the governments
purposes are beneficial. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of
zeal, well meaning but without understanding.
- Louis D. Brandeis
We must remember that a right lost to one is lost to all.
- William Reece Smith, Jr.

If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and white notes together.
- Richard M. Nixon
Whenever men take law into their own hands, the loser is the law. And when the law loses,
freedom languishes.
- Robert F. Kennedy
So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, well be called
a democracy.
- Roger Baldwin
In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its taste,
but in its effects.
- J.W. Fulbright
If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing
that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.
- John Stuart Mill
The ballot is stronger than bullets.
- Joseph Schumpeter
I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist
on the right to criticize her perpetually.
- James Baldwin
I realize that patriotism is not enough. I have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.
- Edith Cavell
Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.
- John F. Kennedy
There is an old saying that the course of civilization is a race between catastrophe and
education. In a democracy such as ours, we must make sure that education win the race.
- John F. Kennedy
The right to vote is the most basic right without which all others are meaninglessThe vote is
the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying
the terrible wall which imprison men because they are different from other men.
- Lyndon B. Johnson
There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured with what is right in America.
- William J. Clinton

I often wonder if we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and courts.
These are false hopes; believe me these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men; when it

dies there, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to
help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no laws, no court to save it.
- Judge Learned Hand
At the end of the day, the American people are going to have to decide. No president can
decide. No president can pursue a policy for very long without the support and the understanding
of the Congress and the American people. Thats been demonstrated over and over again.
- Dean Rusk
The best of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the
market. That at any rate is the theory of the Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an
experiment.
- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
The genius of the Constitution rests not in any static meaning it might have had in a world that
is dead and gone, but in the adaptability of its great principles to cope with current problems and
current needs.
- Justice William Brennan
We have a problem; lets talk about it.
- John Maverick
America has always been about rightsWhile many nations are based on a shared language or
ethnic heritage, Americans have made rights the foundation of their national identity.
- J. Jackson Barlow
Let me be a free man free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade, where I choose,
free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk
and act for myself and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty.
- Chief Joseph
The Constitution and the laws are supreme and the Union indissoluble.
- Andrew Jackson
If we do not want to die together in war, we must learn to live together in peace.
- Harry S. Truman
No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched,
never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life well ever see
on this earth.
- Ronald Reagan
Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely.
The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
Our constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws, not of men.
- Gerald Ford
A free society is a place where its safe to be unpopular.
- Adlai Stevenson

Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in
freedom.
- Albert Einstein
If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an equally full measure of liberty
to all your neighbors. There is no other.
- Carl Schurz
Patterning your life around anothers opinions is nothing more than slavery.
- Lawana Blackwell
Government is too big and too important to be left to the politicians.
- Chester Bowles
The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid.
- Art Spander
It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true
backbone of the rule of law. Time will one day heal the wound to the confidence that will be
inflicted by todays decision. One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with
complete certainty the identity of the winner of this years Presidential election, the identity of
the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nations confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of
the rule of law. I respectfully dissent.
- Justice John Paul Stevens
The Fourth Amendment and the personal rights it secures have a long history. At the very core
stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable
government intrusion.
- Justice Potter Stewart
Censorship reflects a societys lack of confidence in itself. It is the landmark of an authoritarian
regime.
- Justice Potter Stewart
This provision (the Fourth Amendment) speaks for itself. Its plain object is to secure the perfect
enjoyment of that great right of the common law, that a mans house shall be his own castle,
privileged against all civil and military intrusion.
- Justice Joseph Story
It is better, so the Fourth Amendment teaches us, that the guilty sometimes go free than the
citizens be subject to easy arrest.
- Justice William O. Douglas
The critical point is that the Constitution places the right of silence beyond the reach of
government.
- Justice William O. Douglas
I yield to no one in my earnest hope that the time will come when an affirmative action
program is unnecessary and isonly a relic of the past. Then persons will be regarded as

persons, and discrimination of the type we address today will be an ugly feature of history that is
instructive but is behind usIn order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race
And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently.
- Justice Harry A. Blackmun
Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books have played an important role in the
progress of mankind. Persecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have
been able to criticize the oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at allIt is
plain that anonymity has sometimes been assumed for the most constructive purposes.
- Justice Hugo L. Black
Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with
awe and reverence to those who represent us?
- Justice William O. Douglas
In view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant,
ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is colorblind, and neither knows
nor tolerates classes among citizens.
- Justice John Marshall Harlan
Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall,
when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the
profligate are rewarded, because they flatter people, in order to betray them.
- Justice Joseph Story
The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine on it, the more it will
contract.
- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of
political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish
them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. Ones right to life, liberty and property, to
free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may
not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.
- Justice Robert H. Jackson
It is my belief that there are no absolutes in our Bill of Rights, and that they were put there on
purpose by men who knew what the words meant, and meant their prohibitions to be
absolutes.
- Justice Hugo L. Black
Capital punishmenttreats members of the human raceas objects to be toyed with and
discarded.
- Justice William Brennan
The First and Fourteenth Amendments say that Congress and the states shall make no law
which abridges freedom of speech or of the press. In order to sanction a system of censorship, I

would have to say that no law does not mean what it says, that no law is qualified to mean
some laws. I cannot take this step.
- Justice William O. Douglas
Those in power need checks and restraints lest they come to identify the common good for their
own tastes and desires, and their continuation in office as essential to the preservation of the
nation.
- Justice William O. Douglas
The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high
and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.
- Justice Hugo L. Black
Our Constitution is color blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.
- John Marshall Harlan
The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.
- Justice William O. Douglas
The laymans constitutional view is that what he likes is constitutional and that which he
doesnt like is unconstitutional.
Justice Hugo L. Black
The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of
the Constitution itself, and not according to the judges views of fairness, reasonableness, or
justice.
- Justice Hugo L. Black
We do not sit as a super legislature to weigh the wisdom of legislation.
- Justice William O. Douglas
Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law breaker, it breeds contempt for the law.
- Justice Louis Brandeis
The Fifth Amendment is an old friend and a good friend. One of the great landmarks in mans
struggle to be free of tyranny, to be decent and civilized.
- Justice William O. Douglas
Emergency does not create power. Emergency does not increase granted power or remove or
diminish the restrictions imposed upon power granted or reserved. The Constitution was adopted
in a period of grave emergency. Its grants of power to the federal government and its limitations
of the power of the states were determined in the light of emergency, and they are not altered by
emergency.
- Justice Charles Evans Hughes
The guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and
something else when applied to a person of another color. If both are not afforded the same
protection, then it is not equal.

Justice Lewis F. Powell

It is not the function of our 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. Jackson
If err we must, let us err on the side of tolerance.
- Justice Felix Frankfurter
If facts are changing, law cannot be static.
- Justice Felix Frankfurter
The government must pursue a course of complete neutrality toward religion.
- Justice John Paul Stevens
The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedoms.
- Justice William O. Douglas
The price of freedom of religion, or of speech, or of the press, is that we must put up with, and
even pay for, a good deal of rubbish.
- Justice Robert H. Jackson
Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle or impure butter. The audience that hissed
yesterday may applaud today, even for the same performance.
- Justice William O. Douglas
The very reason for the First Amendment is to make the people of this country free to think,
speak, write and worship as they wish, not as the government commands.
- Justice Hugo L. Black
Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared
witches and burned women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of
irrational fear.
- Justice Louis D. Brandeis
If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man,
sitting in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch. Our whole
constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control mens
minds.
- Justice Thurgood Marshall
Government is not an exact science.
- Justice Louis Brandeis
Ideas are indeed the most dangerous weapons in the world. Our ideas of freedom are the most
powerful political weapon man has ever forged.
- Justice William O. Douglas
This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice.
- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.
- Justice John Marshall
There can be no assumption that todays majority is right and the Amish or others like them
are wrong. A way of life that is odd or even erratic but interferes with no right or interests of
others is not to be condemned because it is different.
- Justice Warren E. Burger
As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, theres a twilight
where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we must be aware
of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
- Justice William O. Douglas
The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and the people, equally in war and in
peace.
- Justice David Davis
This government can exercise only the powers granted to it.
- Justice John Marshall
Judgesrule on the basis of law, not public opinion, and they should be totally indifferent to
pressures of the times.
- Justice Warren E. Burger
The right to revolt has sources deep in our history.
- Justice William O. Douglas
The right to defy an unconstitutional statute is basic in our scheme. Even when an ordinance
requires a permit to make a speech, to deliver a sermon, to picket, to parade, or to assemble, it
need not be honored when its invalid on its face.
- Justice Potter Stewart
Nothing is settled until it is settled right.
- Justice Louis Brandeis
The power to tax involves the power to destroy.
- Justice John Marshall