I used to say that the Constitution is not a living document. It's dead, dead, dead. But I've gotten better. I no longer say that. The truth is that the Constitution is not one that morphs. It's an enduring Constitution, not a changing Constitution. That is what I've meant when I've said that the Constitution is dead.
Antonin Scalia
Related The Constitution that I interpret and apply is not living, but dead, or as I prefer to call it, endu... ANTONIN SCALIA The tenth amendment said the federal government is supposed to only have powers that were explicitly... DAVID MALPASS As a former Commander, I gave an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and dom... RYAN ZINKE The European constitution is dead for the Netherlands. BERNARD BOT People say satire is dead. It's not dead; it's alive and living in the White House. ROBIN WILLIAMS I feel that the constitution is workable, it is flexible and it is strong enough to hold the country... B. R. AMBEDKAR There's no religious test under the constitution. That's what it says. Period. JOHN BOLTON The Constitution is constant. There's not one elected official who has the power to change it. T... RUSH LIMBAUGH I've been reading this little book. It's called the Russian constitution. And it says that t... ALEXEI NAVALNY And I think we as a people need to stop being disingenuous about what the Constitution provides for.... JOE MILLER And the president is all wrong when he maintains that a nominee should have an up-or-down vote. The ... ROBERT BYRD I don't like juries having the wool pulled over their eyes. I don't think that's what th... NANCY GRACE I've studied pathological liars, and anything they say, they believe, and that's one of the ... JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL The fact that we're protected under that Constitution in exercising the right of free speech, it... PAT OLIPHANT Life is weird and wonderful like that, is it not. SONYA.E.WILLIAMS I've been studying the Constitution for myself but also as a way for me, as a Democrat, to compr... EVA LONGORIA The Second Amendment is a constitutional right. I didn't make it up, the Republican Party didn... MARCO RUBIO Progressives did not like the antiquated thinking that saw the Constitution as a barrier to governme... SHELDON RICHMAN It is the Constitution of the United States that has been undermined, undercut, and is under attack.... ROBERT BYRD It's dead nice to know I've achieved something. LAUREN SOCHA When it is not necessary to amend the Constitution, it is necessary not to amend the Constitution. CHARLES RICE Nah, I'm not one of those 'hip-hop is dead' people. I just like different artists. I nev... REMY MA There is no asterisk in the Constitution that says 'except for hate speech.' ALAN COLMES Our laws need to reflect the evolution of technology and the changing expectations of American socie... AL FRANKEN We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is, and the judiciary is... CHARLES HUGHES We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is, and the judiciary is... CHARLES EVANS HUGHES When he entered the anteroom, two women looked up at him. One was Miss Robertson, the governor's sec... GEORGE P. ELLIOTT When you're dead, you're dead. No one is going to remember me when I'm dead. Oh, maybe a... SUSAN HAYWARD The thing that's funny is that everyone thinks I'm dead. CHARLES NELSON REILLY I believe in the Constitution. The Constitution says that government isn't supposed to be infusi... MICHAEL NEWDOW It's a really dark, emotionally wrenching world that we've created on 'The Walking Dead.... LAURIE HOLDEN I'm not a natural writer like, let's say - I'm not talking about Arthur Miller; that'... GENE WILDER But I'm not pro death penalty. I - I'm just anti the notion that it is not a matter for demo... ANTONIN SCALIA It's crazy that the Constitution has to be amended to clarify what for the majority of Americans... CHELLIE PINGREE If I cry, it's because I'm very angry and I can't do anything about it because I've ... RIHANNA Impeachment is allowed under Brazil's Constitution. MICHEL TEMER An advanced human rights friendly Constitution is fine and well - but what good is it if it is not p... CHRISTINA ENGELA In a sense there is no 'opposition' in Bahrain, as the phrase implies one unified block with... HAMAD BIN ISA AL KHALIFA We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is, and the judiciary is... CHARLES EVANS HUGHES We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is, and the judiciary is... CHARLES EVANS HUGHES What Fucks me... is that we both are the same... we all walk on the same path... but everything is a... DEYTH BANGER I would love to tell you that it's been absolutely perfect, that I've been a man that's ... A.J. STYLES The only thing that will be remembered about my enemies after they're dead is the nasty things I... CAMILLE PAGLIA But audio is a component of video, so there's always been that anyway, and although we've ne... JERRY GARCIA One of the things I learned in law school is that there's nothing wrong or undesirable or dishon... ADRIAN CRONAUER I would look at older blues musicians who just keep going into their seventies. They keep doing it u... CHRIS CORNELL Today's Constitution is a realistic document of freedom only because of several corrective amend... THURGOOD MARSHALL Everybody has their own answer of what a catch should be. I say, secure the ball; if the ball is not... RANDY MOSS When I tried to get 'Stargate' made, I took it to every studio in Hollywood and every studio... DEAN DEVLIN People always say I'm a legend, but I'm not. Not until I've defended my Olympic titles. ... USAIN BOLT Where in the Constitution does it say that because we don't like a foreign country's leader,... GARY JOHNSON I get very little sleep. But I try to stay constantly busy. My fear is that if I stop working I'... MATTHEW GRAY GUBLER I've had a wordless phase, and that's still not entirely over: what I sing is not always lit... BETH GIBBONS There's no debt limit in the Constitution. JAMES SUROWIECKI When you're elected to Congress, you take a vow to uphold the Constitution and its system of che... CHELLIE PINGREE Integrity is not everything, but it is the only thing that matters. JEFFREY FRY He did articulate that he thinks one should look at the Constitution as the document is set and try ... SAM BROWNBACK The first time I thought I should be an actor was in school. I thought, 'At least this is someth... RANBIR KAPOOR When I walk into a room that is all white and all male, I'm sitting on the outside of that club.... HELENE D. GAYLE The Constitution is a document that should only be amended with great caution. CARL LEVIN The Republic is one and can't be divided: That's the Constitution! It means the Republic can... MARINE LE PEN Everyday somebody dies... in combat, in war in battle... in game everwhere... so far nowhere is safe... DEYTH BANGER The Court has long held that the Constitution protects certain fundamental rights that are not expli... PAUL WATFORD I follow a set of principles, I follow the Constitution. And that's what I base my votes on. Lim... JUSTIN AMASH This is a gift. This is a gift from God. It's really like the old Biblical passage that talks ab... TEENA MARIE I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in 2012. RUTH BADER GINSBURG While we have a Constitution that is very strong in the sense that we are not gonna have a religion ... KEN BUCK Are you taking us to the beach?" - Dan Cahill JUDE WATSON Let the living give thanks to our honored dead who have paid the ultimate sacrifice that the Constit... BOB LATTA But now that I've matured, I've realized that - at the end of the day - what's really im... JANE LYNCH I don't think I've ever been an agnostic. I've always thought there's a superior pow... BOB DYLAN And I have to say, for the record, my favorite line from 'Without A Clue' is after Michael C... JAMES RODAY Even after the dehadhyas (the belief that 'I am the body') has gone, people will say, "I saw you eat... DADA BHAGWAN I am an originalist, to begin with. So, I am a constitutional conservative. I believe that the Const... EVAN MCMULLIN I've always believed that if you are precise in your thoughts, it's not the lines you say th... VERA FARMIGA People say I've had brushes with the law. That's not true. I've had brushes with overzea... EDWIN EDWARDS It's upsetting that it is such a big deal. I wish it weren't an issue all the time. It's... RANDY HARRISON I've been to the studio several times, and it's not that I'm not happy with what I'v... EVAN PARKER I believe that there is a Matrix and... to be more accurate I am in the Pornography Matrix. DEYTH BANGER I think the document has to be read from a commonsense perspective. The constitution is not a suicid... A.E. DICK HOWARD One thing I've learned now is that I should not say when a book is coming out until I'm sure... PATRICK ROTHFUSS See, what you're meant to do when you have a mid-life crisis is buy a fast car, aren't you? ... ROBBIE COLTRANE See, what you're meant to do when you have a mid-life crisis is buy a fast car, aren't you? ... ROBBIE COLTRAINE There are the horror fans that love the 'Evil Dead' because of the humor, but I'm sure i... FEDE ALVAREZ The U.S. constitution is an extraordinary document. In my view, it should not be amended often. BERNIE SANDERS It's enshrined in our Constitution that an individual has a right to release information and dis... MOBY I've always swung the same way. The difference is when I swing and miss, people say, 'He'... SAMMY SOSA Religious freedom is already protected in the United States. It's in our Constitution. It's ... DANNEL MALLOY I am a forthright defender of the right to bear arms - which is guaranteed not only by the U.S. Cons... DOUG DUCEY But just as they did in Philadelphia when they were writing the constitution, sooner or later, you... COLIN POWELL I live on a one-way street that's also a dead end. I'm not sure how I got there. STEVEN WRIGHT A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day. EMILY DICKINSON A word is dead when it is said. Some say. I say it just, begins to live that day. EMILY DICKINSON A word is dead when it is said. Some say. I say it just begins to live that day. EMILY DICKINSON The truth is I love being alive. And I love feeling free. So if I can't have those things then I... ANGELINA JOLIE I appreciate the idea that anybody would think of me as a star. But I'm really not career orient... LANCE HENRIKSEN My mother always used to say when picking up a product, 'Would you give this to the Duchess of W... LEONARD LAUDER Family life is tough, I'll say that for it. But in my case, I've mined the family. In a sens... LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III I still make videos in my bedroom by choice because that's the feel of my comedy, but the opport... LILLY SINGH I'm very happy with the response for everything I've done, but, you know, sometimes you get ... EDGAR WRIGHT
More Antonin Scalia
What is a moderate interpretation of the text? Halfway between what it really means and what you'... ANTONIN SCALIA The main business of a lawyer is to take the romance, the mystery, the irony, the ambiguity out of e... ANTONIN SCALIA What secret knowledge, one must wonder, is breathed into lawyers when they become Justices of this C... ANTONIN SCALIA The Constitution that I interpret and apply is not living, but dead, or as I prefer to call it, endu... ANTONIN SCALIA Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited... It is not a right to keep and carry... ANTONIN SCALIA There exists in some parts of the world sanctimonious criticism of America's death penalty, as s... ANTONIN SCALIA It's absolutely clear that whatever cruel and unusual punishments may - may mean with regard to ... ANTONIN SCALIA The court makes an amazing amount of decisions that ought to be made by the people. ANTONIN SCALIA The Court today completes the process of converting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 from a... ANTONIN SCALIA I spent my junior year in Switzerland. On the way back home, I spent some time in England, and I rem... ANTONIN SCALIA By formally declaring anyone opposed to same-sex marriage an enemy of human decency, the majority ar... ANTONIN SCALIA As a general rule, I do not think it appropriate for judges to heap either praise or censure upon a ... ANTONIN SCALIA is to give live-birth abortion free rein. ANTONIN SCALIA a serious inability of our political branches to conduct international affairs. ANTONIN SCALIA find itself unable to resolve the significant legal issue presented by the case. ANTONIN SCALIA Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached ANTONIN SCALIA A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable. ANTONIN SCALIA If you think aficionados of a living Constitution want to bring you flexibility, think again. You th... ANTONIN SCALIA Maybe he wanted to buy a new crutch for Tiny Tim, ... Please, counselor, don't read all these tender... ANTONIN SCALIA The line between protected pornography and unprotected obscenity lies between appealing to a good he... ANTONIN SCALIA [The Freedom of Information Act is] the Taj Mahal of the Doctrine of Unanticipated Consequences, the... ANTONIN SCALIA The Court today completes the process of converting [Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964] from... ANTONIN SCALIA I attack ideas. I don't attack people. And some very good people have some very bad ideas. And i... ANTONIN SCALIA In a big family the first child is kind of like the first pancake. If it's not perfect, that'... ANTONIN SCALIA But I'm not pro death penalty. I - I'm just anti the notion that it is not a matter for demo... ANTONIN SCALIA The American people have determined that the good to be derived from capital punishment - in deterre... ANTONIN SCALIA There is nothing new in the realization that the Constitution sometimes insulates the criminality of... ANTONIN SCALIA A good, hard-hitting dissent keeps you honest. ANTONIN SCALIA Originalism is sort of subspecies of textualism. Textualism means you are governed by the text. That... ANTONIN SCALIA Until the courts put a stop to it, public debate over same-sex marriage displayed American democracy... ANTONIN SCALIA I think I'm a pretty nice fella. ANTONIN SCALIA I do accept that, with - with respect to those vague terms in the Constitution such as equal protect... ANTONIN SCALIA Being a good person begins with being a wise person. Then, when you follow your conscience, will you... ANTONIN SCALIA If you're going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that yo... ANTONIN SCALIA It seems to be an odd proposition, ANTONIN SCALIA If you think aficionados of a living Constitution want to bring you flexibility, think again. You th... ANTONIN SCALIA With each decision of ours that takes from the People a question properly left to them - with each d... ANTONIN SCALIA And what I would say now is, yes, if a state enacted a law permitting flogging, it is immensely stup... ANTONIN SCALIA Some people are inherently likeable. If you're not - work on it. It may even improve your social... ANTONIN SCALIA Like other human institutions, courts and juries are not perfect. One cannot have a system of crimin... ANTONIN SCALIA I would think the normal assumption is if one person wants that search excluded, that search is excl... ANTONIN SCALIA If there's anything you absolutely hate, why, it must be unconstitutional. Or, if there's an... ANTONIN SCALIA It's not up to the courts to invent new minorities that get special protections. ANTONIN SCALIA I watched 'The Sopranos,' I saw a couple of episodes of 'Mad Men.' I loved 'Sein... ANTONIN SCALIA that reliability be assessed in a particular manner: by testing in the crucible of cross-examination... ANTONIN SCALIA The counting of votes that are of questionable legality does in my view threaten irreparable harm to... ANTONIN SCALIA You could have 50 different states having 50 different regulations ... until they were all litigated... ANTONIN SCALIA If you are sentenced to torture for a crime, yes, that is a cruel punishment. But the mere fact that... ANTONIN SCALIA Because values change, legislatures abolish the death penalty, permit same-sex marriage if they want... ANTONIN SCALIA I do not think my impartiality could reasonably be questioned. ANTONIN SCALIA Does it stop being a quota because it is somewhere between eight and 12 percent, but it is a quota i... ANTONIN SCALIA The first instinct of power is the retention of power, and under a Constitution that requires period... ANTONIN SCALIA I am questioning the propriety – indeed, the sanity – of having a value-laden decision such as t... ANTONIN SCALIA Such commands are fundamentally incompatible with our constitutional system of dual sovereignty. ANTONIN SCALIA What is a moderate interpretation of the text? Halfway between what it really means and what you'd l... ANTONIN SCALIA If there was anybody that has been sort of the social glue of the court, it's been Sandra and I will... ANTONIN SCALIA is locked in the heart of the president. ANTONIN SCALIA I don't know. I wouldn't want to go through it today, I'll tell you that much. ANTONIN SCALIA When dinner is over, it won't be her bones on the table. ANTONIN SCALIA They don't have any separate harm. ANTONIN SCALIA I do not believe my impartiality can reasonably be questioned, ANTONIN SCALIA Let the cancer patients suffer. ANTONIN SCALIA I cannot imagine any responsible citizen would have objected to giving the name, ANTONIN SCALIA I assure you, I have no agenda. ANTONIN SCALIA I don't like interjecting us into a battle between the two political branches, ANTONIN SCALIA The LSC subsidy neither prevents anyone from speaking nor coerces anyone to change speech, ANTONIN SCALIA Abortion is off the democratic stage. Prohibiting it is unconstitutional, now and forever, coast to ... ANTONIN SCALIA A journalistic purpose could be someone with a Xerox machine in a basement. ANTONIN SCALIA over my dead body. ANTONIN SCALIA You can make an exception without the sky falling, ANTONIN SCALIA What will happen is, for every one person who sees it on C-SPAN gavel to gavel -- so that they can r... ANTONIN SCALIA Does the deck seem stacked against those who oppose abortion? ... You bet. ANTONIN SCALIA If one is to say as the court does today that ALL executions of the mentally retarded are so morally... ANTONIN SCALIA the Constitution's refusal to 'deny or disparage' other rights is far removed from affirming any one... ANTONIN SCALIA They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be ... ANTONIN SCALIA In a big family the first child is kind of like the first pancake. If it's not perfect, that's okay,... ANTONIN SCALIA The First Amendment has not repealed the ancient rule of life, that he who pays the piper calls the ... ANTONIN SCALIA A law can be both economic folly and constitutional. ANTONIN SCALIA We have laws against torture. The Constitution says nothing whatever about torture. It speaks of pun... ANTONIN SCALIA Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached. ANTONIN SCALIA If we're picking people to draw out of their own conscience and experience a 'new' Const... ANTONIN SCALIA Power tends to corrupt. But the power in Washington resides in Congress, if it wants to use it. It c... ANTONIN SCALIA If I have brought any message today, it is this: Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as st... ANTONIN SCALIA If I had to choose, I would always take the less dynamic, indeed even the lazy person who knows what... ANTONIN SCALIA I think Thomas Jefferson would have said the more speech, the better. ANTONIN SCALIA Burning the flag is a form of expression. Speech doesn't just mean written words or oral words. ... ANTONIN SCALIA Words have meaning. And their meaning doesn't change. ANTONIN SCALIA A man who has made no enemies is probably not a very good man. ANTONIN SCALIA My family has served the country in almost every major war since the Civil War. JACK SCALIA There's a greatness in this country many of the kids today don't know. JACK SCALIA I was raised with those principals and values and ethics that came out of the men and women that ser... JACK SCALIA I remember fear and I remember the potential of nuclear war. JACK SCALIA You gotta take care of the people that are part of the foundation. If you don't, it crumbles. JACK SCALIA But this country is a great country and will always rebound. JACK SCALIA Because if you have a strong foundation like we have, then you can build or rebuild anything on it. ... JACK SCALIA Our firefighters are our last line of defense, baby. JACK SCALIA The reward of a work is to have produced it; the reward of effort is to have grown by it. ANTONIN SERTILLANGES Mozart is sweet sunshine. ANTONIN DVORAK When we speak the word life, it must be understood we are not referring to life as we know it from i... ANTONIN ARTAUD If I commit suicide, it will not be to destroy myself but to put myself back together again. Suicide... ANTONIN ARTAUD You are outside life, you are above life, you have miseries which the ordinary man does not know, yo... ANTONIN ARTAUD Tragedy on the stage is no longer enough for me, I shall bring it into my own life. ANTONIN ARTAUD The stage is a concrete physical place which asks to be filled, and to be given its own concrete lan... ANTONIN ARTAUD The theater, which is in no thing, but makes use of everything ANTONIN ARTAUD Theater of cruelty means a theater difficult and cruel for myself first of all. And, on the level of... ANTONIN ARTAUD However fiercely opposed one may be to the present order, an old respect for the idea of order itsel... ANTONIN ARTAUD With society and its public, there is no longer any other language than that of bombs, barricades, a... ANTONIN ARTAUD Never tire yourself more than necessary, even if you have to found a culture on the fatigue of your ... ANTONIN ARTAUD It is thus that the few rare lucid well-disposed people who have had to struggle on the earth find t... ANTONIN ARTAUD But how is one to make a scientist understand that there is something unalterably deranged about dif... ANTONIN ARTAUD And what is an authentic madman? It is a man who preferred to become mad, in the socially accepted s... ANTONIN ARTAUD Hell is of this world and there are men who are unhappy escapees from hell, escapees destined ETERNA... ANTONIN ARTAUD The race of prophets is extinct. Europe is becoming set in its ways, slowly embalming itself beneath... ANTONIN ARTAUD It is not opium which makes me work but its absence, and in order for me to feel its absence it must... ANTONIN ARTAUD Ah! How neatly tied, in these people, is the umbilical cord of morality! Since they left their mothe... ANTONIN ARTAUD So long as we have failed to eliminate any of the causes of human despair, we do not have the right ... ANTONIN ARTAUD There are souls that are incurable and lost to the rest of society. Deprive them of one means of fol... ANTONIN ARTAUD There is in every madman a misunderstood genius whose idea, shining in his head, frightened people, ... ANTONIN ARTAUD All true language is incomprehensible, like the chatter of a beggar's teeth. ANTONIN ARTAUD It is almost impossible to be a doctor and an honest man, but it is obscenely impossible to be a psy... ANTONIN ARTAUD I myself spent nine years in an insane asylum and I never had the obsession of suicide, but I know t... ANTONIN ARTAUD Written poetry is worth reading once, and then should be destroyed. Let the dead poets make way for ... ANTONIN ARTAUD No one has ever written, painted, sculpted, modeled, built, or invented except literally to get out ... ANTONIN ARTAUD Never tire yourself more than necessary, even if you have to found a culture on the fatigue of yo... ANTONIN ARTAUD We do not die because we have to die; we die because one day, and not so long ago, our consciousness... ANTONIN ARTAUD The theater, which is in no thing, but makes use of everything -- gestures, sounds, words, screams, ... ANTONIN ARTAUD There is in every madman a misunderstood genius whose idea, shining in his head, frightened people, ... ANTONIN ARTAUD Where there is a stink of shit there is a smell of being ANTONIN ARTAUD All true language is incomprehensible, like the chatter of a beggar's teeth. ANTONIN ARTAUD I have need of angels. Enough hell has swallowed me for too many years. But finally understand this-... ANTONIN ARTAUD We must beware of yielding to the pressure of a spirit of cowardly conformity which proclaims itself... ANTONIN SERTILLANGES Written poetry is worth reading once, and then should be destroyed. Let the dead poets make way for ... ANTONIN ARTAUD When we speak the word ''life',' it must be understood we are not referring to life as we know it fr... ANTONIN ARTAUD Destroy yourselves, you who are desperate, and you who are tortured in body and soul, abandon all ho... ANTONIN ARTAUD We must wash literature off ourselves. We want to be men above all, to be human. ANTONIN ARTAUD Those who live, live off the dead. ANTONIN ARTAUD It is a painful thing to say to oneself: by choosing one road I am turning my back on a thousand oth... ANTONIN SERTILLANGES I, myself, spent 9 years in an insane asylum and never had any suicidal tendencies, but I know that ... ANTONIN ARTAUD Don't tire yourself more than need be, even at the price of founding a culture on the fatigue of you... ANTONIN ARTAUD When we speak the word 'life,' it must be understood we are not referring to life as we know... ANTONIN ARTAUD The man who is too isolated grows timid, abstracted, a little odd: He stumbles along amid realities ... ANTONIN SERTILLANGES [defines a madman as] a man who preferred to become mad,in the socially accepted sense of the word, ... ANTONIN ARTAUD Don't tire yourself more than need be, even at the price of founding a culture on the fatigue of... ANTONIN ARTAUD There is in every madman a misunderstood genius whose idea shining in his head f... ANTONIN ARTAUD