Top 100 Quotes About The Bill Of Rights
#1. Are gun rights advocates arguing that roving gangs ... shooting innocent bystanders constitutes a 'well-regulated militia'?
Bill Hicks
#2. The very purpose of a bill of rights is to withdraw certain subjects from ... political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities.
Robert H. Jackson
#3. I suspect that the framers of the Bill of Rights have long since rolled over in their graves.
Jay Parini
#4. To invent a war means that you've become a wartime president, and you can suspend much if not all of the Bill of Rights.
Gore Vidal
#5. All art is based on nonconformity ... Without nonconformity we would have had no Bill of Rights or Magna Carta, no public education system, no nation upon this continent, no continent, no science at all, no philosophy, and considerably fewer religions.
Ben Shahn
#6. The U.S. Bill of Rights is being steadily eroded, with two million telephone calls tapped, 30 million workers under electronic surveillance, and, says the author, countless Americans harassed by a government that wages spurious wars against drugs and terrorism.
Gore Vidal
#7. The Bill of Rights wasn't enacted to give us any rights. It was enacted so the Government could not take away from us any rights that we already had.
Kenneth Eade
#8. Regulated" rights are not rights. They are niceties and platitudes intended to keep the populace thinking their individual autonomy is respected by their government.
A.E. Samaan
#9. I hold it to be impracticable"4 to try to define it or any right narrowly in a Bill of Rights.
Thom Hartmann
#10. I don't think anyone has ever announced running for president that they want to change the Bill of Rights.
George Will
#11. Terrorists and their allies believe the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the American Bill of Rights and every charter of liberty ever written are lies to be burned and destroyed and forgotten.
George W. Bush
#12. Slavery is a memory of something we cannot remember, and yet we cannot forget.
Bill T. Jones
#13. Recommended additon to the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights: "A right to not have your data rise up and attack you."
Benjamin Wittes
#14. America was founded to be a beacon of liberty, particularly religious liberty. The framers of our Constitution sought to preserve religious liberty to such an extent that they made it the first right protected in the Bill of Rights.
Edwin Meese
#15. The immune system, the hypothalamus, the ventro-medial frontal cortices, and the Bill of Rights have the same root cause.
Antonio R. Damasio
#16. Arlen Specter is the man who voted in favor of Bill Clinton during impeachment, voted against Robert Bork for the Supreme Court, voted against school choice for the District of Columbia, endorses an absolutist interpretation of abortion rights. He is bright and he is tough and he belongs elsewhere.
William F. Buckley Jr.
#17. The right to be a journalist is part of the Bill of Rights.
John C. Dvorak
#18. By the 1960s, many of us believed that the Civil Rights Movement could eliminate racism in America during our lifetime. But despite significant progress, racism remains.
Bill Cosby
#19. No bill of sexual rights can hold its own against the lawless, untamable landscape of the erotic imagination.
Daphne Merkin
#20. Left wing, whacko groups like animal rights activists and right-to-lifers were easy targets for my humor. I enjoyed poking fun at these closed-minded groups.
Bill Bernico
#21. There are only two reasons why you should ever be asked to give your youngsters. One is defense of our homes. The other is the defense of our Bill of Rights and particularly the right to worship God as we see fit. Every other reason advanced for the murder of young men is a racket, pure and simple.
Smedley D. Butler
#22. The next time you get the urge to shut somebody up because they don't see the world exactly the same way you do, take a deep breath, get out your Bill of Rights, and count to the ten amendments.
Dennis Miller
#23. I revere the Bill of Rights, but at the same time I believe that anyone who's using three or more of them at a time is hogging them too much. (152)
Sarah Vowell
#24. The Bill of Rights should contain the general principles of natural and civil liberty. It should be to a community what the eternal laws and obligations of morality are to the conscience. It should be unalterable by any human power ...
Thomas Paine
#25. The Bill of Rights never gets off the page and into the lives of most Americans.
William J. Brennan
#26. I have little patience with people who take the Bill of Rights for granted. The Bill of Rights, contained in the first ten amendments to the Constitution, is every American's guarantee of freedom.
Harry S. Truman
#27. We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights-older than our political parties, older than our school system.
William O. Douglas
#28. From my admittedly cranky perspective, Bush/Cheney are lousy on the Bill of Rights, Clinton/Gore were lousy on the Bill of Rights, and everyone within bribing distance of the 2008 election (Hillary, McCain, Giuliani) are lousy on the Bill of Rights, too.
Matt Welch
#29. The nation's government has just handed me the bill that grants us our civil rights. I am receiving it before you, certain that I am accepting this on behalf of all Argentinean women, and I can feel my hands tremble with joy as they grasp the laurel proclaiming victory.
Evita Peron
#30. This has been the new normal since September 11. Everyone knows, but nobody says, that if something happens again, the elite consensus in this country, and the overwhelming consensus of the citizenry, will be to pitch the Bill of Rights out the window and start rounding folks up.
Charlie Pierce
#31. Civil Wars happen when the victimized are armed. Genocide happens when they are not.
A.E. Samaan
#32. Some politicians are aware of the Bill of Rights. It seems that the opposition party is far more likely to invoke it, to wave it in the air, this is what we saw from a lot of republicans during the Clinton Administration, and we are seeing the same from Democrats under Bush.
James Bovard
#33. The Bill of Rights existed long before President Obama was elected, and as long as I'm a U.S. Senator, I will fight to protect the basic rights and liberties that belong to all of us as American citizens.
Rand Paul
#34. The Bill of Rights decoupled religion from the state, in part because so many religions were steeped in an absolutist frame of mind - each convinced that it alone had a monopoly on the truth and therefore eager for the state to impose this truth on others.
Carl Sagan
#35. You have to remember, rights don't come in groups we shouldn't have 'gay rights'; rights come as individuals, and we wouldn't have this major debate going on. It would be behavior that would count, not what person belongs to what group.
Ron Paul
#36. No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words "no" and "not" employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights.
Edmund A. Opitz
#37. I cannot agree with those who think of the Bill of Rights as an 18th century straitjacket, unsuited for this age ... The evils it guards against are not only old, they are with us now, they exist today.
Hugo Black
#38. The strength of this country lies in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights and the freedom of speech and thought.
George Soros
#39. There are two amendments only which I am anxious for: 1. A bill of rights, which it is so much the interest of all to have that I conceive it must be yielded ... 2. The restoring of the principle of necessary rotation, particularly to the Senate and Presidency, but most of all to the last ...
Thomas Jefferson
#40. Religion is extremely important in this democracy - so important that it occupies a prime position in the Bill of Rights.
Mario Cuomo
#41. A hastily written "Civil Rights Act" was rushed through Congress. President Andrew Johnson immediately vetoed it, noting that the right to confer citizenship rested with the several states, and that "the tendency of the bill is to resuscitate the spirit of rebellion".
Eustace Mullins
#42. I do not like [in the new Federal Constitution] the omission of a Bill of Rights providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms for ... protection against standing armies
Thomas Jefferson
#43. The truth is, after all the declamations we have heard, that the Constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, A BILL OF RIGHTS.
Alexander Hamilton
#44. When the Bill of Rights was written, no one owned a MAG5100, 100-round magazine for an M-16. The concept of a mass slaughter carried out over a matter of minutes was incomprehensible.
Kurt Eichenwald
#45. The ADA was a landmark civil rights legislation. It was a bill of rights for persons with disabilities, a formal acknowledgement that Americans with disabilities are Americans first and that they're entitled to the same rights and freedoms as everybody else.
Valerie Jarrett
#46. The Patients' Bill of Rights is necessary to guarantee that health care will be available for those who are paying for insurance. It's a part of the overall health care picture.
Debbie Stabenow
#47. If you believe in the values of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, if you're willing to work hard and play by the rules, you are part of our family. And we're proud to be with you.
William J. Clinton
#48. We should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit.
Carl Sagan
#49. Some of the folks on both sides might be sincere, but it does seem as if it is only the opposition that cares about the Bill of Rights most of the time.
James Bovard
#50. The only guarantee of the Bill of Rights which continues to have any force and effect is the one prohibiting quartering troops on citizens in time of peace. All the rest have been disposed of by judicial interpretation and legislative whittling.
H.L. Mencken
#52. I filed the first gay rights bill in Massachusetts history in 1972 in the legislature, one of the first in the country.
Barney Frank
#53. The American moron's mind simply does not run in that direction; he wants to keep his Ford, even at the cost of losing the Bill of Rights
H.L. Mencken
#54. Without amendments we would never even have had the Bill of Rights.
Adrian Cronauer
#55. The Bill of Rights does not come from the people and is not subject to change by majorities. It comes from the nature of things. It declares the inalienable rights of man not only against all government but also against the people collectively.
Walter Lippmann
#56. Attorney General John Ashcroft is in intensive care. He's suffering from a severe case of pancreatitis, which they can't really figure out because he's not really a drinker. They think he might have picked up some type of infection while wiping his ass with the Bill of Rights.
Bill Maher
#57. We set up government by consent of the governed, and the Bill of Rights denies those in power any legal opportunity to coerce that consent. Authority here is to be controlled by public opinion, not public opinion by authority.
Robert H. Jackson
#58. Coming up, at 89 years old, acclaimed sculptor Gerson Frank was finally able to marry his longtime partner, Bill. Their relationship has covered three decades and seen many changes in gay rights, but Gerson never viewed himself as an activist.
Jennifer Lopez
#59. The next year, the Court decided what is generally viewed as the major case of the early years. The decision, Chisholm v. Georgia (1793), provoked an immediate backlash, in the form of the first constitutional amendment to be ratified after the ten amendments of the Bill of Rights.
Linda Greenhouse
#60. The Second Amendment of our Bill of Rights is my Concealed Weapons Permit, period.
Ted Nugent
#61. If we're going to preach about democracy we're going to have to make difficult decisions. We're not going to sell our values out for basing rights, particularly when (Defense) Secretary (Donald) Rumsfeld himself noted that there were options to the base in Uzbekistan
Bill Delahunt
#62. The bill neither confers nor abridges the rights of anyone but simply declares that in civil rights there shall be equality among all classes of citizens and that all alike shall be subject to the same punishment.
Lyman Trumbull
#63. [The Bill of Rights is] designed to protect individuals and minorities against the tyranny of the majority, but it's also designed to protect the people against bureaucracy, against the government.
Laurence Tribe
#64. People in this country need to understand when you go to any airport in the United States, you are not protected by the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. They can do anything they want to you, and there is no where you can go to seek redress.
Jesse Ventura
#65. We have enjoyed so much freedom for so long that we are perhaps in danger of forgetting how much blood it cost to establish the Bill of Rights.
Felix Frankfurter
#66. So that the failures to pass a civil rights bill isn't because of Black Power, isn't because of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; it's not because of the rebellions that are occurring in the major cities.
Stokely Carmichael
#67. Who needs the protection of the Bill of Rights most? The weak, the most vulnerable in society.
Danny Kaye
#68. There was not a member of the Constitutional Convention who had the least objection to what is contended for by the advocates for a Bill of Rights and trial by jury.
George Washington
#69. The right to be let alone is the underlying principle of the Constitution's Bill of Rights.
Erwin Griswold
#70. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights.
Smedley Butler
#71. Let's face it. Our ass is in a crack. We're gonna have to let this nigger bill pass. [Said to Senator John Stennis (D-MS) during debate on the Civil Rights Act of 1957]
Lyndon B. Johnson
#72. Americans may not always live up to the Bill of Rights, but Americans do not ban books.
Bradley A. Smith
#73. The callous use of general warrants and the disregard for the Bill of Rights must end. Forcing us to choose between our rights and our safety is a false choice and we are better than that as a nation and as a people.
Rand Paul
#74. Today, as always, the people, no less than the courts, must remain vigilant to preserve the principals of our Bill of Rights, lest in our desire to be secure we lose our ability to be free.
Earl Warren
#75. People have lost what this nation was built on. I think our core values have been set aside ... I believe in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights.
Diane Hendricks
#76. What good is a Bill of Rights that does not include the right to play, to wander, to explore, the right to stillness and solitude, to discovery and physical freedom?
Edward Abbey
#77. I am in favor, heartily in favor, of our Constitution and Bill of Rights and I owe my allegiance to my country at all times.
Julius And Ethel Rosenberg
#78. I also wish that the Pledge of Allegiance were directed at the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as it is when the President takes his oath of office, rather than to the flag and the nation
Carl Sagan
#79. The very inclusion of the right to keep and bear arms in the Bill of Rights shows that the framers of the Constitution considered it an individual right.
Samuel Ray Cummings
#80. It is my belief that there are "absolutes" in our Bill of Rights, and that they were put there on purpose by men who knew what words meant and meant their prohibitions to be "absolutes."
Hugo Black
#81. Our Founding Fathers drafted the Bill of Rights to ensure that We the People could determine how best to protect our communities.
Mike Quigley
#82. It's a different way of looking at the world. Your life isn't about rights. It's about responsibilities.
Mr Bill Berkowitz
A. J. Jacobs
#83. The war on drugs to me is absolutely phoney, its so obviously phoney, ok? It's a war against our civil rights, that's all it is. They're using it to make us afraid to go out at night, afraid of each other, so that we lock ourselves in our homes and they get suspending our rights one by one.
Bill Hicks
#84. I'd like to think I would have signed the Civil Rights bill and wouldn't have had any issues with it.
Gary Johnson
#85. We have a list of human rights - right to food, right to shelter, right to health, right to education, many such items which are considered and accepted as bill of rights. These are to be insured to people. So all nations, all societies try to do that.
Muhammad Yunus
#86. The Sherman Act is similar in the economics sphere to the Bill of Rights in the personal sphere.
Harold H. Greene
#87. 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
#88. The whole of the Bill is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals ... It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of.
Albert Gallatin
#89. 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
#90. 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
#91. 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
#92. The Bill of Rights is a born rebel. It reeks with sedition. In every clause it shakes its fist in the face of constituted authority ... It is the one guarantee of human freedom to the American people.
Frank I. Cobb
#93. According to Andrew Jackson Rogers, a New Jersey Democrat, "If you pass this bill you will allow the negroes of this country to compete for the high office of President of the United States" - no "civilized" country on earth gave rights to such "barbarians.
Elizabeth R. Varon
#94. Before she landed, Ms Clinton publicly downplayed the importance of human rights. At a press conference ahead of leaving, she beamingly implored the Chinese government to keep buying US debt, like a travelling saleswoman hawking a bill of goods.
Richard McGregor
#96. The state's interest in effective crime-fighting should never vitiate the citizens' Bill of Rights.
John Ashcroft
#97. If gay Americans are not allowed to get married and have all the benefits that American citizens are entitled to by the Bill of Rights, they should get one hell of a tax break. That is my opinion.
Jeanne Phillips
#98. I think that one of the most useful applications of the Creator's Bill of Rights is that it clearly indicates for creators what rights they have at the outset.
Chris Roberson
#99. [I]t is true that [the provisions of the Bill of Rights] were designed to meet ancient evils. But they are the same kind of human evils that have emerged from century to century whenever excessive power is sought by the few at the expense of the many.
Hugo Black
#100. Who talks most about freedom and equality? Is it not those who hold the bill of rights in one hand and a whip for affrighted slaves in the other?
Alexander Hamilton
