"Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves were they to rise from the dead."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Thomas Jefferson, letter to H. Tompkinson (AKA Samuel Kercheval) (12 July 1816).
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Constitutions
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Constitutions
18 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Constitutions →
Related Quotes
"The problem in any constitutional change is the great care put to solve the problems of the past instead of grasping …"
"So, while the people are indeed supreme over the written Constitution, the spiritual constitution is supreme over the…"
"A constitution, as Solon said, is good for a certain people and for a certain time. It shouldn’t be mummified."
"A constitution is made of a spirit, institutions, and a practice."
"The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive."
"If a written constitution is not in close accord with the way the society itself is constituted, it will be irrelevan…"
"Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and t…"
"Constitutions are intended to preserve practical and substantial rights, not to maintain theories."
"Now and then, an extraordinary case may turn up, but constitutional law, like other mortal contrivances, has to take …"
"By reducing too the faculty of borrowing within it's natural limits, it would bridle the spirit of war, to which too …"