Top 100 Amendment Quotes
#1. The prima facie evidence provision in this case ignores all of the contextual factors that are necessary to decide whether a particular cross burning is intended to intimidate. The First Amendment does not permit such a shortcut.
Sandra Day O'Connor
#2. The First Amendment is important not only to guarantee the rights of alternative religions and of nonreligious persons in society; it is also important in setting the only possible legal and social condition for the creative health of serious religion itself.
Langdon Brown Gilkey
#3. The censor is always quick to justify his function in terms that are protective of society. But the First Amendment, written in terms that are absolute, deprives the States of any power to pass on the value, the propriety, or the morality of a particular expression.
William O. Douglas
#4. The First Amendment was specifically designed for citizens to insult politicians. Libel laws were written to protect law students speaking out on political issues from getting called whores by Oxycontin addicts.
Bill Maher
#5. The 'takings' clause of the Fifth Amendment is for conservatives what the equal protection clause of the 14th is for liberals.
Michael Kinsley
#6. The basis of the First Amendment is the hypothesis that speech can rebut speech, propaganda will answer propaganda, free debate of ideas will result in the wisest governmental policies.
Fred M. Vinson
#7. I think it is appropriate that we pay tribute to this great constitutional principle which is enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution: the principle of religious independence, of religious liberty, of religious freedom.
John F. Kennedy
#8. And it never, ever was interpreted that the Second Amendment meant individual's right to bear arms
Rosie O'Donnell
#9. People may be due the benefits of a democratic electoral process. But in the United States, content curators appropriately have a First Amendment right to present their content as they see fit.
Jonathan Zittrain
#10. How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual ... as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of.
Suzanna Hupp
#11. You're suppressing my first amendment rights," she said, voice muffled. "You don't live in America; you live in the United States of Teague.
Lauren Gilley
#12. A constitutional amendment for congressional term limits could never achieve the blessing of Congress; it could be initiated only by the states.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
#13. The Second Amendment is a constitutional right. I didn't make it up, the Republican Party didn't make it up. It's in the Constitution. I think it's just as important as any of the other rights in our constitution.
Marco Rubio
#14. The Second Amendment is the one that really protects all of our liberties that we are given by our Lord, and our God-given rights, and are protected under the Constitution.
Paul Broun
#15. The relevant part of the First Amendment here prohibits the making of any law, quote, "abridging the freedom of speech." And it's pretty well-established that speech comes in many forms.
Laura Sydell
#16. The main thing we should be focused on is the strategy to destroy ISIS. And I laid out a plan that the Reagan Library before the tragedy of Paris, and before San Bernardino to do just that. It requires leadership, it's not filing an amendment and call it a success.
Jeb Bush
#17. There are more than 30 states, who either by statute or constitutional amendment, have defined marriage as being between a man and a woman.
John Thune
#18. In the Constitution of the United States, Negroes are referred to as fellows although the word 'slave' is carefully avoided before the thirteenth amendment.
W.E.B. Du Bois
#19. 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
#20. Free Speech in the College Community is a very timely book written by a dedicated scholar of the First Amendment. Challenging and readable it should be studied by all academicians, students, legislators and lawyers.
Nancy Kassebaum
#21. The First Amendment is first for a reason - it cannot be ignored by the D.C. City Council.
James Lankford
#22. The First Amendment says nothing about your getting paid for saying anything. It just says you can say it. I don't believe that if a corporation pulls all the money out of you or a network pulls their money away or you get fired, you're being censored.
Penn Jillette
#23. The erosion of privacy rights under the Fourth Amendment, written to protect us against unreasonable search and seizure, began in earnest under President George W. Bush.
Rebecca MacKinnon
#24. The first amendment ensures not that speech will be fair, but that it will be free. It cannot be both.
David Mamet
#25. A campaign ought to demonstrate the basic human decency of the candidate. That means your First Amendment rights end at the tip of your opponent's nose - even in the matter of political rhetoric.
Mike Pence
#26. The word Amendment itself is an encouraging thing, isn't it? Because an amendment, it tells of a system of government that allows for the improvement of itself. Just move forward a little bit, one day at a time.
Daniel Day-Lewis
#27. Respecting the Second Amendment does not mean abandoning common sense. The right to own guns in this country must remain, while we also must strengthen our laws to prevent mass shootings.
Claire McCaskill
#28. The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance, much less advance Mohammedanism, or Judaism or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but ... to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government.
Joseph Story
#29. The Defense Department's plan to ban newspaper reporters from pool coverage of military operations is incredible. It reveals the administration to be out of touch with journalism, reality and the First Amendment.
Arthur Ochs Sulzberger
#30. The First Amendment was written by the Founders to protect the free exercise of Christianity.
Bryan Fischer
#31. The Orderly Liquidation Authority prescribed by Dodd-Frank should be repealed and replaced by an amendment to the U.S. Bankruptcy Code which would operate to prevent cross-default provisions from impacting derivatives books so long as mark-to-market payments are being made in a timely fashion.
Paul Singer
#32. When I started law school I was shocked to learn that our legal system traditionally had the man as the head and master of the family. As late as the '70s and '80s when we were fighting for the Equal Rights Amendment, states like Louisiana still had a head and master law.
Patricia Ireland
#33. Many who confess their venial sins out of custom and concern for order but without thought of amendment remain burdened with them for their whole life and thus lose many spiritual benefits and advantages.
Saint Francis De Sales
#34. The truth is, while the FBI is hiding behind the 5th Amendment, the Unabomer is qualifying for Social Security as a terrorist. Beam me up, Mr. Speaker.
James Traficant
#35. If the Tenth Amendment were still taken seriously, most of the federal government's present activities would not exist. That's why no one in Washington ever mentions it.
Thomas Woods
#36. Politicians need to rethink their reflexive invocations of the Second Amendment and the idea that the gun lobby is too powerful to challenge.
David Ignatius
#37. Struggling to end the war and to eliminate slavery once and for all by way of the 13th Amendment, with the amendment's prospective passage undermining the effort to make peace with the Confederacy and vice versa, Lincoln embodied the Great Man theory that leftists disdain.
Steve Erickson
#38. Our 1 million members across the country will be watching closely to see if the video game industry hides behind a First Amendment veil in order to exploit children for the sake of corporate profit.
Connie Sellecca
#39. The press is the only institution that is truly accountable. The founding fathers put the First Amendment first for a reason.
Rupert Murdoch
#40. So now we're after a constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a guy-and-gal thing. To the founders, this would have been like an amendment requiring the sun to rise in the east; it would fall under the category of obvious truths that the Constitution need not address.
James Lileks
#41. Authoritative interpretations of the First Amendment guarantees have consistently refused to recognize an exception for any test of truth whether administered by judges, juries, or administrative officials and especially one that puts the burden of proving truth on the speaker.
William J. Brennan
#42. The next great First Amendment battleground is just six inches high. It is a license plate bearing the Confederate flag.
Anonymous
#43. With the strong bipartisan rejection of the Dorgan amendment today, the Senate cast a vote in favor of the U.S. working to knock down unfair trade barriers that hurt American business and farmers
Rob Portman
#44. The US constitution's First Amendment rights only cover Americans, but I believe that in a democracy the competition of ideas and free speech should combat beliefs that it does not agree with - more speech and debate, not censorship.
Joichi Ito
#45. The history of our nation is intertwined with a certain religious tradition, and that the First Amendment was not intended to result in the complete exclusion of religious beliefs from our public classrooms.
William Bennett
#46. Why was the amendment, expressly declaring the right of the people to exclude slavery, voted down? Plainly enough now, the adoption of it would have spoiled the niche for the Dred Scott decision.
Abraham Lincoln
#47. If we rebuke our heart by a calm, mild remonstrance, with more compassion for it than passion against it and encourage it to make amendment, then repentance conceived in this way will sink far deeper and penetrate more effectually than fretful, angry, stormy repentance.
Francis De Sales
#49. I intend to dedicate my remaining time as president of the NRA to ensure that the Second Amendment is safe from Al Gore and all those who threaten it.
Charlton Heston
#50. The DISCLOSE Act is a testament to the wisdom of the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United. The First Amendment sought to place political speech beyond the government's control, and we can be glad that it did.
Bradley A. Smith
#51. I do not support a constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriage.
Corrine Brown
#52. What I put forward was an amendment that would have temporarily halted immigration from high-risk terrorist countries, but would have started it up, but I wanted them to go through Global Entry, which is a program where we do background checks.
Ted Cruz
#53. It's all right to agree or disagree on the balanced budget amendment. It's all right to talk about how we're going to appropriate.
Sheila Jackson Lee
#54. The English Language Amendment says above all, 'Let's see to it that our children, our young people, learn English. Let us not deny them the opportunity to participate in American life, so that they can go as far as their dreams and talents can take them.
S.I. Hayakawa
#55. I support gun safety measures, and I'll tell you, I grew up in a family of gun owners and hunters, and I went hunting with my dad as a kid, and you know, I have deep respect for the Second Amendment and the culture of our country.
Eric Swalwell
#56. I think it's unconstitutional on the 10th Amendment front.
Mitt Romney
#57. A vision from a universe where the Equal Rights Amendment
with its redefinition of personhood
is rejected by the house of deputies: A universe where to die is to become property and to be created outwith a gift of parental DNA is to be doomed to slavery.
Charles Stross
#58. The HHS rule blatantly denies the breadth of First Amendment protection, and violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, under which Congress promotes First Amendment liberty by prohibiting government from unduly burdening religious freedom.
Andrew McCarthy
#59. I think there should be a constitutional amendment making it impossible for anyone to be president who believes in an afterlife.
Gore Vidal
#60. The First Amendment freedom of religion is as important today as when the Bill of Rights was first written.
Arlen Specter
#61. Under the First Amendment's prohibition of the establishment of religion, the Court has steadily made religion a matter for the private individual by driving it out of the public arena.
Robert Bork
#63. If the Bill of Rights was intended to place strict limits on federal power and protect individual and locality from the national government the 14th Amendment effectively defeated that purpose by placing the power to enforce the Bill of Rights in federal hands, where it was never intended to be.
Ilana Mercer
#64. [T]oday's Washington is about as attentive to the Tenth Amendment as the Unitarian Church is to the Book of Revelation.
Joseph Sobran
#65. The Patriot Act [ ... ] makes a mockery of the Sixth Amendment, which protects your right to a speedy and public trial, and your right to the assistance of counsel for your defense.
Michael Badnarik
#66. Commanding goodness and forbiding to do evil (are) for the amendment and correction of society and the common folks.
Fatima Bint Muhammad
#67. We are going to fight to pass the long over-due Equal Rights Amendment.
Bernie Sanders
#68. I'm a crusader. I really believe in the First Amendment, and I use it fully, and I pay a price for that.
Al Goldstein
#69. If you push down that pyramid of power and spread out the base, every member gets a chance to file their bill and have it heard and file their amendment and have it heard, as opposed to the system that we have now, which closes out, closes down bills, limits debate, and so forth.
Dan Webster
#70. The Second Amendment only protects the people who want all the guns they can have. The rest of us, we've got no Second Amendment. What are we supposed to do?
Louise Slaughter
#71. The First Amendment ... begins with the five loveliest words in the English language: 'Congress shall make no law'.
George Will
#72. We've seen Second Amendment enthusiasts take action against abortion doctors. There's an attempt to paint us as villains in the same way.
Jane Mayer
#73. The Supreme Court is expected to rule this week whether banning cross burning by groups like the Klu Klux Klan violates the first amendment. The outcome could affect the entertainment at Trent Lott's Christmas party.
Tina Fey
#74. Somewhere along the line we started misinterpreting the First Amendment and this idea of the freedom of speech the amendment grants us. We are free to speak as we choose without fear of prosecution or persecution, but we are not free to speak as we choose without consequence.
Roxane Gay
#75. Asking questions is an essential part of police investigation. In the ordinary sense a police officer is free to ask a person for identification without implicating the Fourth Amendment.
Anthony Kennedy
#76. The Republican Party supported the Equal Rights Amendment before the Democratic Party did. But what happened was that a lot of very right-wing Democrats, after the civil rights bill of 1964, left the Democratic Party and gradually have taken over the Republican Party.
Gloria Steinem
#77. Evolutionism is a religious world view that is not supported by science, Scripture, popular opinion, or common sense. The exclusive teaching of this dangerous, mind-altering philosophy in tax supported schools, parks, museums, etc. is a clear violation of the First Amendment.
Kent Hovind
#78. The point is that knowledge of God is not prohibited under the First Amendment.
Roy Moore
#79. Recent school shootings have lured ill-informed Americans into a war on our Second Amendment guarantees, led by the nation's tyrants and their useful idiots ... The Second Amendment was given to us as protection against tyranny by the federal government and the Congress of the United States.
Walter E. Williams
#80. However, they ignore the fact that the First Amendment is intended to protect only against government sanctions for exercising free speech rights, not private actions.
Ed Koch
#81. Violating the 4th Amendment guarantees against illegal searches and seizures is not the way to solve crime problems.
Tim Wise
#82. I don't understand why it's controversial for law-abiding citizens protecting themselves under the Second Amendment.
Jerry Falwell Jr.
#83. The 5th Amendment is an old friend and a good friend. one of the great landmarks in men's struggle to be free of tyranny, to be decent and civilized.
William O. Douglas
#84. The First Amendment isn't about free thought and free opinion and free belief. The First Amendment is about free exercise
the carrying into practice of religious principles, and beliefs, and convictions.
Alan Keyes
#85. The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is beside the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.
Anthony Kennedy
#86. Our bill of rights has been shredded. The fourth amendment specifically prohibits the kind of activities the NSA is involved in domestically. The fifth amendment prohibits any president or anyone else from killing anyone without due process.
Ray McGovern
#87. The Fourth Amendment is clear; we should be secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects, and all warrants must have probable cause. Today the government operates largely in secret, while seeking to know everything about our private lives - without probable cause and without a warrant.
Ron Paul
#88. History has shown us that, on extraordinarily rare occasions, it becomes necessary for the federal government to intervene on behalf of individuals whose 14th Amendment rights to legal due process and equal protection may be violated by a state.
Michael K. Simpson
#89. My group has to do the Eighth Amendment, which is the one about cruel and unusual punishment. I'm not sure why group work isn't counted in that amendment.
Kirstin Cronn-Mills
#90. Only in America - the land of the free - can an innocent person be forced to plead the Fifth for exercising their First Amendment rights. Say what you want, but you better shut your fucking pie hole if it offends someone's delicate sensibilities.
Kendall Grey
#91. The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution had abolished slavery but allowed one major exception: slavery remained appropriate as punishment for a crime. In
Michelle Alexander
#92. I'm a firm believer in the Second Amendment and the Bill of Rights. I don't think you should infringe on the type of weapon somebody should buy or the number of rounds in a high-capacity magazine.
Gabriel E. Gomez
#93. I cannot believe that Muffy just called the First Amendment fiddle-faddle. Fiddle Faddle is a delicious candy-coated popcorn snack food. It has nothing to do with the Bill of Rights.
Meg Cabot
#94. Leftists would like to pretend that any criticism of their views raises the specter of domestic repression. But in a country with a First Amendment, no suppression from government is likely, and in the citadels of the media and the academy, the far left is actually vastly overrepresented.
Andrew Sullivan
#95. After a week of back and forth, and forth and back over firearms, it's good to see a consensus developing on this common-sense amendment to keep handguns away from children.
Herb Kohl
#96. The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects against self-incrimination,
John Grisham
#97. With that in mind and in celebration of National Prayer Day, today I have proposed in the House of Representatives a Constitutional Amendment that would restore voluntary prayer in our Nation's schools.
Nick Rahall
#98. Until politicos take a true stand in defense of marriage by proposing an anti-adultery amendment to the Constitution, stop demonizing gays and lesbians when the one debasing your marriage is the individual in the mirror.
John Ridley
#99. He was prodding her. Let him. They were on safe ground. "Well, in trying to satisfy one amendment, it looks like they rubbed out another one. The Tenth. It's only a small amendment, only one sentence long, but it seemed to be the one that meant the most, somehow.
Harper Lee
#100. In my view, a corporation is not a person. A corporation does not have First Amendment rights to spend as much money as it wants, without disclosure, on a political campaign.
Bernie Sanders
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