Antonin Scalia Quotes

Nobody knows exactly what that means ... It has become a wish list for people who want things in the Constitution.

If the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the Nation ... be not the guide in expounding it, there can be no security for a consistent and stable government, more than for a faithful exercise of its powers

… so as not to hazard the Constitution.

Our greatest present disloyalty to the Constitution lies in the fact that we do not study and criticize it as did the men who devised and adopted it. They met novel and desperate situations by establishing unheard-of and revolutionary forms of government.

The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself and not what we have said about it.

I'd love to thwart the Census form, but I want a constitutional basis for doing it - and here's the tricky thing. I think even constitutional purists would tell you that just because something isn't in the Constitution does not mean the government cannot do it.

You may say to the people, that I have received their petition. You may remind them, also, that I am acting in accordance with the constitution. It is necessary for me to defend those rights of mine that are guaranteed by that constitution, even at the sacrifice of everything that I possess, and of my own person.

A new world has come into being since the Constitution was adopted. Are the narrow, limited necessities of the old thirteen states ... to remain the rule of interpretations?

People seem to be concerned about the Constitution of the United States only when it pertains to something that is of concern to them.

They keep such a dingdong about “supporting the Constitution.” One might imagine it was some miserable, decrepit old creature that was no longer able to totter on crutches but must be held on every side, and dragged along like a drunken loafer, on his road to the lock-up.

Is there a man who will say that the Constitution wants no reform? Will any man be found to say that the Constitution is perfect?

It they do not succeed with the Constitution, then they must succeed without it.

When the Chief Justice read me the oath and came to the words ‘support the Constitution of the United States’ I felt like saying: "Yes, but it's the Constitution as I understand it, flexible enough to meet any new problem of democracy--not the kind of Constitution your Court has raised up as a barrier to progress and democracy.”.

Anybody who questions the validity of the Constitution, whether it works in the modern era, should never be president.

We have to have a good look at the Constitution. Let's determine where the shortcomings are. Then we can start talking of clauses.

The Constitution is no simple contract, not because it uses a certain amount of open-ended language, but because its language grants and guarantees many good things, and good things that compete with each other and can never all be realized, altogether, all at once.

We can constitutionally extirpate slavery at this time. But if we fail to do this, then unless we intend hereafter to violate the Constitution, we shall have a fugitive slave law in operation whenever the war is over.

Outside of the Constitution we have no legal authority more than private citizens, and within it we have only so much as that instrument gives us. This broad principle limits all our functions and applies to all subjects.

No one familiar with the common law of England can read the Constitution of the United States without observing the great desire of the Convention which framed that instrument to make it conform as far as possible with that law.

A disturbing prospect looms before us as Americans consider the possibility of a second term for President Barack Obama. Millions of conservatives who revere the Constitution, with its guarantees of freedom and limited government, have watched with alarm as the campaign season has unfolded.

My feeling is that the judge has a responsibility to the Constitution first, precedent second. Precedent is one factor. It is not the only factor. If it was the only factor, then, you know, we wouldn't have had Roe vs. Wade. We wouldn't have had Griswold. We wouldn't have had Lawrence. We wouldn't have had all these cases which the Left love.

The framers of the constitution were very literate men and they could write very well. When they wrote that “Congress shall make NO LAW respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,” they meant NO LAW. If they had wanted to have some laws or an emergency law, they would not have written, “NO LAW.” They were expert at the English language.

Do judges follow the Constitution? Well, Yes and No. They follow the Constitution as they understand it.

I wanted the Irish Constitution to be as explicit as it possibly could be, with as few fictions as possible.

I could not do otherwise without transcending the limits prescribed by the Constitution for the President and without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion nowadays enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government.