Benjamin Franklin Quotes

The General Constitution of our country is good, and a wholesome government could be framed upon it, for it was dictated by the invisible operations of the Almighty…

We have no national temples but the Capitol; we consult no common oracle but the Constitution.

Tinkers may work, quacks may prescribe, and demagogues may deceive, but I declare to you that there is no remedy for us ... but in adhering to the Constitution.

Compromise created the Constitution.

We believe, and I think properly, that when the men who met in 1787 to make our Constitution they made the best political document ever made; but, remember, they did so very largely because they were great compromisers.

I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve of them; for having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information or fuller consideration to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise .... In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such .... I doubt too whether any other convention we can obtain may be able to make a better Constitution.

I've been reading this little book. It's called the Russian constitution. And it says that the only source of power in Russia is the people. So I don't want to hear those who say we're appealing to the authorities. Who's the power here?

We have to achieve what we can, and if we haven't yet learned that we are not always going to get our way this could be frustrating.

I am willing ... when I cannot get all I wish, to take what I can get.

There is no good behavior clause in the Constitution.

Our Constitution was framed, not to declare and uphold the deity of Christ, but the sacredness of humanity. Ours is the first government made by the people and for the people. It is the only nation with which the gods have had nothing to do.

Half a loaf is better than no bread. If we cannot secure all our rights, let us secure what we can.

No man in the U. S. I suppose, approved of every title in the constitution.

If the debates had been public, no constitution would have ever been adopted.

We must never forget that it is a constitution we are expounding ... a constitution intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently, to be adopted to the various crises of human affairs.

Blind submission to the Administration of the government is not devotion to the country or the Constitution. The administration is not the government.

Man must have an idol, and our political idol ought to be our constitution and laws. They, like the ark of the covenant among the Jews, ought to be sacred from all profane touch.

Nobody was really happy but everyone could accept.

I will never forget that it is the people who speak directly through the constitution they have adopted.

You don't say, 'I've done it!' You come, with a kind of horrible desperation, to realize that this will do.

Once I wanted total happiness - now I will settle for a little less pain.

It is becoming more widely acknowledged that it is better to have a good constitution than not having a perfect one.

How can this full, perfect, just and supreme voice of the people, embodied in the Constitution, be brought to bear, habitually and steadily, in counteracting the fatal tendency of the government to the absolute and despotic control of the numerical majority?

The layman's constitutional view is that what he likes is constitutional and that which he doesn't like is unconstitutional.

Government itself is founded upon the great doctrine of the consent of the governed, and has its cornerstone in the memorable principle that men are endowed with inalienable rights.