text:
Enya

Enya (born 17 May 1961), birth name Eithne Ní Bhraonáin (sometimes presented in the media as the Anglicized Enya Brennan), is Ireland's best-selling solo musician. As a musical group, Enya is really three people: Enya herself, who composes and performs the music; Nicky Ryan, who produces the albums; and Roma Ryan, who writes the lyrics in various languages. Enya is a phonetic approximation of how Eithne is pronounced in her native Irish.

KSCA interview (1996)

 * The Memory of Trees promotional interview with Merilee Kelly of KSCA 101.9 FM (18 January 1996)

 * I think they find it — they find me quite confusing, because — they know the music, but they don't know anything about me ... because I keep a very private lifestyle so they end up ... making up stories as such. But I don't really concern myself too much about them.
 * On the music press

 * On the project The Celts I was asked to ... to write a song. And, at the time I was ... arranging with Nicky, and writing the music and performing ... so, no desire whatsoever to write lyrics!... But Roma was actually writing poetry at the time, and she was involved, with listening in the studio ... being the audience in the studio ... so she was involved with the project. So, it was very obvious that she would write the lyrics.

 * There is no set sort of rules, or no set sort of formula to the way we work in the studio ... so it's difficult to know ... what we'll move on to next. We don't like to say, "Never, no we'd never do this" ... But, we ... like the setup as far as there's only three people in the studio ... because the work is very personal, very intimate, very emotional ... and that is very important to the album.

 * I get very inspired by traveling, by being home in Donegal ... all those wonderful moments I'll take with me to the studio. And they, ah, then become at some stage, a melody. That emotion that I loved at some stage will evolve as a melody.

 * For me, I've derived from religion ... what... I enjoy ... and it's to go to church, but usually ... when there's nobody else there. I just love that moment, ah, to just sit there. It's very peaceful, very calm, and very therapeutic, and it's ... wonderful.

 * A lot of people tend to think that because I need all this time on my own in the studio, that I need time on my own, period. And that's not really true.

The Telegraph interview (2005)

 * "Everyone thinks I'm so shockable" interview with Neil McCormick in The Telegraph (24 November 2005)

 * I like to stay up-to-date with what's happening musically ... I wish people wouldn't think that such things were going to shock me. 'Wow! Does Enya really watch TV?'

 * Regardless of how I live my life, there are people who develop fixations that are not healthy. It could be a visual thing, or it could be the music that they are drawn to. These people need help.

 * I do promotion when it is necessary ... But I always want to get back to the music. The personal appearances and red carpet events are very glitzy, but it's a bit false.

 * I'm not one for walking the beaches humming a melody ... I love the discipline of sitting in the studio, writing and listening. That is my domain.

 * They are as much "Enya" as I am.
 * On her producer Nicky Ryan and her lyricist, his wife Roma Ryan.

 * There is no formula to it because writing every song, for me, is a little journey. The first note has to lift you and make you go, 'What's this?' You play C, but why is it that one day it leads to G and it didn't yesterday? I don't know. It's everything. It's the walk you take in the morning, it's the night before, the meeting with people, landscapes, the chats, all of that evolves in some way into melody, but I'm not sure how it's going to happen. I'm dealing with the unknown all the time and that is exciting.

 * I suppose there's a certain way I like the music to be performed, and I feel I can capture it better than anyone else. I know every note in every song, the whole history of it, even parts that were there and are gone.

 * The word workaholic is so severe, but I do focus a lot on my work ... I think a lot about what I'm doing in all aspects of my life, what am I trying to achieve here, am I happy with this? Music is like a mirror in front of you. You're exposing everything, but surely that's better than suppressing. ... You have to dig deep and that can be hard for anybody, no matter what profession. I feel that I need to actually push myself to the limit to feel happy with the end result.

Anna interview (2005)

 * "A Rare Meeting With Enya" interview with Henna Helne (24 November 2005) translated from Finnish by Suvi Kaikkonen.

 * Many childless single woman would be at my age already in panic. Also I have been thinking for the last 3 years, why I have been sacrificing so much time for my work. But, I have ended up to a thought that I would never change a single day out of my life. It would be lovely to get a family one day, but my life doesn't end even if that would not happen.

 * I and Nicky have got a lot of disagreements, but they are nearly always associated to music. Because we both are very strong-willing persons, we might sit in the opposite corners in the studio argueing about things. One does never know beforehand, whose idea works the best way.

 * Amarantine is an ancient word, which means eternity. The poets describe an undying flower with that word, and I fell in love with that idea ... For me that word suited rhythmically to the refrain of the piece. A-ma-ran-ti-ne. In our website the fans tried to guess something super-romantic to be the album's name, but this word was obviously never guessed by anyone.

 * When entering the studio, I don't know what will happen. I do a so-called trip into myself: I sit down at the piano and the melody might start to evolve from my playing or then I might start to sing it. At that stage I do not yet have clear ideas about what kind of emotions I would like to express. Until I play the completed piece to Roma and Nicky and when I observe their reactions, the music gets its meaning...

 * For me this career and that I am privileged to do a job I love to do, means really, really much. I would never change any moment from my life. When making music I sink myself into the process as deeply as I can and forget all of the success.

The Times Magazine interview (2005)

 * "The Invisible Star" interview with Nigel Williamson in The Times Magazine (10 December 2005)

 * I could have been more famous if I did all the glitzy things, but celebrity always seemed so unnecessary ... Fame and success are very different things, anyway. The music sold itself before anybody knew who I was, so I felt I had a choice. I told the record company I didn't feel the need to be out there at red-carpet events. I wanted a career. But I wanted to keep myself intact as a person.

 * I started writing instrumentals but Roma pointed out they were very visual, so she started writing lyrics .. and Nicky had this idea of creating a wall of sound and started multi-tracking my voice.

 * I didn't expect such a huge reaction, but I knew I was doing something different to everything else that was happening at the time ... People feel a very personal connection with the music.

 * There might be one little thing that makes all the difference, one note or one word. The fine-tuning is all important, and you've got to stay there until you get it right ... That's why it can take years.

Women's Weekly interview (2006)

 * "Enya - The invisible superstar" interview with William Langley in Women's Weekly (January 2006)

 * I am really a very shy person ... If I appear, it is because of the music, not because I want to be seen. I'm not a recluse. I like to go out, but I don't like the glitziness that goes with it.

 * I'm very happy as I am. I realise that I made sacrifices early in my career and that it was hard on my relationships because, when I am working, I am very focused and it isn't easy, when you have been in the studio all day, to say to someone, 'I'll meet up with you later on.' I learned that it was necessary to be dedicated and put work first. But, at the same time, it was a wonderful feeling to be successful at doing something I loved.

 * When I left school, I had a list of priorities headed by 'marriage' and 'children'. That is how, I suppose, as a woman, you are brought up to think. At the same time, as I grew older, I told myself that if it happens, it happens, and that will be fine, but if it doesn't, that will be fine, too.

 * I loved to talk about music to Nicky ... His influence came from people like The Beatles and The Beach Boys, and he had these ideas about layering vocals, painting landscapes with music. Roma knew about Irish mythology, told stories, wrote poetry and had this special feeling for lyrics. My grounding came from the classics.

 * Sitting and writing music on your own makes you think a lot about your life. Who are you? Would you change anything about yourself? This is where it comes from. It is like having a mirror held up in front of you, looking into yourself and asking these questions.

 * What I was looking for was a romantic athmosphere that I could feel at home with. I think I've achieved that. I love my home. I have friends round. I take care to live in it, not to work in it.
 * On her castle

 * I'm sometimes asked what are the pluses and minuses of celebrity ... and, for me, the biggest plus is being successful at something that I love to do. The minuses, unfortunately, include having to live with security and the knowledge that you may be stalked. ... I do like people ... I have lots of friends, but I can only be who I am.

You interview (2006)

 * "From the Heart" interview with Maureen Paton in You (8 January 2006)

 * I live in Victorian Gothic castle in Killiney that I was so bold as to rename Manderley, because Daphne du Maurier 's Rebecca is one of my favourite books. ... People have this image of me as an ethereal Lady of Shalott, floating across the battlements, but it's a very small castle as castles go — with no big ballrooms... I don't write my music in my home, only in the studio; I want as normal life as possible at home, with dinner parties and entertaining.

 * The success of Watermark surprised me. I never thought of music as something commercial; it was something very personal to me... The writing of a melody is an emotional moment; success doesn't make it easy.

 * I felt as if we were two families: the older ones, who were away touring when I was at school and the younger ones. I was closer to my two younger sisters because of the nearness of our ages, but I feel I would have to have permission to say their names — they're very private that way.

 * I joined my family's band, Clannad, as a teenager in 1980 to sing harmonies and play keyboards, but it wasn't musically challenging for me; I felt like an outsider. ... My split from Clannad two years later caused a conflict of loyalty for a time, because I went off with their manager Nicky Ryan, who had asked me to join Clannad in the first place.

 * Enya is more than just me. It's also Nicky, who arranges my melodies, and his wife Roma, who writes the lyrics. They believed in my music from day one

 * I have never come close to being married or engaged. I was with someone eight years ago when I questioned whether I wanted the pressure of being married or having children. I always felt that if pregnancy was to happen, it would happen; if it didn't, it didn't. ... I have security, I don't need a man in my life. I don't have pets, I have two guard dogs; and I don't do my own shopping; it's a security thing....The downside of success is stalkers. I have had death threats from people with fixations who need help.

Song lyrics

 * Note: Though all vocals and instrumentals on her albums are done entirely by Enya, nearly all the lyrics to her music are written by Roma Ryan, or taken from traditional sources.

 * Saol na saol, tús go deireadh. Tá muid beo go deo.
 * English translation: Life of lives, beginning to the end. We are alive forever.
 * "The Celts", from The Celts (1987) Translations for The Celts, from Enya: Translations and Lyrics. English translation by Fidelma McGinn, Daniel Quinlan, and Willie Arbuckle.

Watermark (1988)

 * My light shall be the moon And my path, the ocean. My guide, the morning star As I sail home to you.
 * "Exile"

 * When the evening falls and the daylight is fading, From within me calls — could it be I am sleeping? For a moment I stray, then it holds me completely. Close to home, I cannot say.
 * "Evening Falls"

 * The bright days of my youth They were full of hope The great journey that was before me then Was what was destined to be, bye bye. Now I'm sorrowful, The day is long past. Alas and woe, oh.
 * "The Bright Days of My Youth" (original Irish Gaelic title "Na Laetha Geal M'óige")

 * How far to go I cannot say. How many more Will journey this way?
 * "Storms in Africa II"

A Day Without Rain (2000)
Pilgrim

 * All days come from one day that much you must know, you cannot change what's over but only where you go.

 * Each heart is a pilgrim, each one wants to know the reason why the winds die and where the stories go.

Amarantine (2005)
Less than a pearl English Translation:
 * Out of night has come the day Out of night, our small earth. Our words drift away. Our words journey to find those who will listen.

 * We call out into the distance... Less than a pearl in a sea of stars, we are a lost island in the shadows.

Amarantine

 * You know when you give your love away it opens your heart, everything is new. And you know time will always find a way to let your heart believe it's true.

 * You know love is everything you say; a whisper, a word, promises you give. You feel it in the heartbeat of the day. You know this is the way love is.

 * Amarantine... Love is.

 * You know love may sometimes make you cry, so let the tears go, they will flow away, for you know love will always let you fly — how far a heart can fly away!

 * You know when love's shining in your eyes it may be the stars fallen from above. And you know love is with you when you rise, for night and day belong to love.

It's in the rain

 * Listen to the rain Here it comes again Hear it in the rain Feel the touch of tears that fall — they won't fall forever In the way the day will flow all things come, all things go.

 * Late at night I drift away - I can hear you calling, and my name is in the rain, leaves on trees whispering, deep blue sea's mysteries.

If I could be where you are

 * Where are you this moment? only in my dreams. You're missing, but you're always a heartbeat from me.

 * Winter lies before me now you're so far away. In the darkness of my dreaming the light of you will stay

 * If I could be close beside you If I could be where you are if I could reach out and touch you and bring you back home Is there a way I can find you Is there a sign I should know Is there a road I could follow to bring you back home to me

The River Sings
 * English Translation:

 * Our words go beyond the moon. Our words go into the shadows. The river sings the endlessness. We write of our journey through night. We write in our aloneness. We want to know the shape of eternity. Who knows the way it is? Who knows what time will not tell us?

 * Mountains, solitude and the moon until the journey's end? The river holds the lost road of the sky; the shape of eternity?

 * Where is the beginning? Where is the end? Why did we fall into days? Why are we calling out into the endlessness? Who knows the way it is? Who knows what time will not tell us?

Long long journey

 * Long, long journey through the darkness, long, long way to go; but what are miles across the ocean to the heart that's coming home?

Sumiregusa
 * Translation : Wild Violet

 * The poignancy of things A purple flower The blossoms of spring And the light snow of winter How they fall

Someone said goodbye

 * Summer. When the day is over there's a heart a little colder; someone said goodbye, but you don't know why. Somewhere there is someone keeping all the tears they have been weeping, someone said goodbye, but you don't know why.

 * Always looking for a meaning, all the time you keep believing, but I don't know why you won't say goodbye. Even when the sun is shining you don't see the silver lining, but I don't know why you won't say goodbye.

A moment lost

 * It's only now when words are said that break my heart in two, I wonder how you can endure all I've said, all I say to you.

 * After all the words are said, after all the dreams we made; every one a precious one, every one a summer sun...

 * A moment lost, forever gone, can never be again, so know how much it means to me; all you said, all you gave, all your love to me.

Amid the falling snow

 * A million feathers falling down, a million stars that touch the ground, so many secrets to be found amid the falling snow.

 * The silence of a winter's night brings memories I hold inside; remembering a blue moonlight upon the fallen snow.

Water shows the hidden heart
 * English Translation:

 * From the City of Constellations to the wanderer and a Place of Rains he journeys on... ...the City of hesitation and doubt the Island of the house the colour of the sea the Plain of Mementoes he journeys on to find his love... ...the Valley of lost time the City of End and Endlessness the Isle of Revenents he journeys on...

 * in silence through the night close to the City of Realisations; it is here one finds the way... ...Mount Orison the City of Days the Tree of the lost he journeys on... ...north of his love a road through a valley of darkness the islands that are not of this world he journeys on to find his love...

 * It is a long way through darkness to the way of the eremite the eremite sings of the world and of the journey of love, which is not lost in eternity...

Quotations about Enya

 * Enya left school in 1979, and we had already been a nucleus, so it was probably difficult for her. She wanted to go off and do her own thing. Tensions were created because we never answered any of the questions. If you're going to answer questions, people aren't going to believe you anyway. The proof of the pudding is that Enya is my sister, and I love her dearly, and we get on really, really well.
 * Máire Brennan, On rumors of ill will between Enya and her family members who were also former Clannad bandmates

 * She does have a life. She'd kill me if I talked about it, so I'm not going to talk about it. There's a difference between being a private person and a recluse. All this blushed and flushed stuff about her being a recluse put it to bed, for God's sake.
 * Nicky Ryan

 * Enya never writes a bad melody. That's first and foremost her secret. As she goes along, she'll start changing the dynamics, pushing here and there so that not everything is perfectly in unison. It adds a texture you can acquire only from having different voices. The variations lead to interesting quirks. It's an integral part of the Enya sound.
 * Nicky Ryan

 * Enya knew nothing about recording, about production or arrangements. Originally, we were stock-piling music and just letting her get on with it. There was no name on the music she was writing. All I knew was that hard work succeeded.
 * Nicky Ryan

 * I heard the soundtrack to The Celts TV programme, which Enya had done, and I thought "what's this magical music?", and it was such an antidote to the, sort of, the day's work, that every night I went home and played the soundtrack from The Celts. And then I met her in Ireland and she was telling me how she was signing to another record company, I went "no, no, no, no, you can't do this, you must sign with us." And I did it really just as a self-indulgence, that I thought this was beautiful music and wanted to be associated with it, there wasn't really a kind of commercial edge to it at all.
 * Rob Dickins, former chairman of Warner Music UK

 * Sometimes the company is there to make money, sometimes it's there to make music. Enya was the latter. I would have been a genius if I knew this was going to sell millions of records. I just wanted to be involved with this music.
 * Rob Dickins

 * Enya and her team record and we stay in touch until there is something for me to listen to. I then provide an outside view. She is a genius in the studio, comparable to somebody like Brian Wilson, but she and Nicky can be their own worst enemies at striving for personal best all the time. I guess that's the price of perfectionism.
 * Rob Dickins

 * There's something about Celtic mythology which is deep in the soul, and I just think that somehow she has tapped right into it.
 * Rob Dickins

 * You tend to behave yourself in her company. Make even a small joke about her songs and she gets angry. And she does have a peculiar effect on men. I've watched normally sane journalists waxing metaphysical when they meet her.
 * Rob Dickins

The Other Side of the Rainbow (2000)

 * Quotations of Enya's sister, Máire Brennan from her autobiography The Other Side of the Rainbow (2000) ISBN 0340756128

 * Playing in a family band has many advantages, but it can often mean that when the going gets tough you take it out on each other with a liberty that only family can tolerate. I suppose it had always been difficult for Eithne. We loved what she brought to the band, but I know it was hard for her to infiltrate our years as a tightly knit nucleus. Musically, Ciaran and Pol had always been the creative force, and Noel, Padraig and myself had then worked our own expression around them. It was a good formula that worked well. Inevitably, when Eithne joined us full time, she found it hard. She hadn't been part of the original song-collecting days and consequently didn't share our enthusiasm for the old songs. I suppose she always felt little more than a "guest musician". As sisters we had always been close and talked about everything together, so I was sorry when band business caused a strain between us. One day, just after the tour, Eithne announced that she had decided to leave Clannad. She was going to pursue a solo career with Nicky Ryan as her manager. In the long term it turned out to be a good decision. I missed her, but I'm sure the apprenticeship with Clannad helped Eithne develop her own sound and afforded her strong contacts in the music business. She is talented and ambitious and, in the years that followed, the family was delighted to watch the success that came her way.

 * Over the years I have learnt to be on my guard but, as any artist will testify, you are completely powerless if a writer has a certain agenda. There have been many damaging articles that have hurt my family deeply stories about our relationships, particularly between myself and Enya. We resolved in the early days not to talk about our private lives but, especially in Enya's case, this has often led to more intrigue and false speculation. For an artist, it is the unfortunate consequence of being in the public eye, but what makes me really angry is the way the family inevitably bears the suffering.

 * Eithne had been working on her album and the single, 'Orinoco Flow', was released while we were in the studio. We were so excited for her. It was already at number eleven in the charts and we felt sure it was going to go up. We'd watched her on Top of the Pops the week before, so come Sunday evening we expectantly gathered in the house near the studio to listen to the Top Forty. Our youngest brother, Bartley, was working in London and he came over to be with us to hear the news. Number one! We were all shouting and screaming and hugging each other and you couldn't have heard the record playing above the din in the room. First we spoke to Eithne on the phone. More squealing. She was so happy and we knew that sharing the moment with us, even over the telephone, was very special. Then we rang our brother Leon who was over in Donegal. He'd been driving Mammy to church and they'd been frantically trying to get the radio station on the car radio so they could hear the result. The whole family were over the moon. That evening at dinner we had a bottle of champagne and toasted Eithne's success.

 * On Christmas Day the traditional Brennan Christmas continued in full swing. It was wonderful that we could all be at home together. The girls set about preparing the meal while the boys rearranged the furniture so we could all sit around the table together. Eithne had just got a video camera and was skulking from room to room trying to catch everyone at their most embarrassing. It didn't take much to get us to act accordingly and the house was full of laughter and song.
 * On Christmas 1990

title: Enya


text:
United States Bill of Rights

The United States Bill of Rights comprises the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. Proposed following the often bitter 1787–88 debate over the ratification of the Constitution and written to address the objections raised by Anti-Federalists, the Bill of Rights amendments add to the Constitution specific guarantees of personal freedoms and rights, clear limitations on the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and explicit declarations that all powers not specifically granted to the federal government by the Constitution are reserved to the states or the people. They include freedom of speech, a free press, freedom of religion, free assembly, and free association, as well as the right to keep and bear arms.

Quotes

 * I cannot consider the Bill of Rights to be an outworn 18th Century 'strait jacket'…Its provisions may be thought outdated abstractions by some. And it is true that they were designed to meet ancient evils. But they are the same kind of human evils that have emerged from century to century wherever excessive power is sought by the few at the expense of the many. In my judgement the people of no nation can lose their basic liberty so long as a Bill of Rights like ours survives and its basic purposes are conscientiously interpreted, enforced and respected so as to afford continuous protection against old, as well as new, devices and practices which might thwart those purposes.
 * Justice Hugo Black, dissenting in Adamson v. California (1947)

 * The concept that the Bill of Rights and other constitutional protections against arbitrary government are inoperative when they become inconvenient or when expediency dictates otherwise is a very dangerous doctrine and if allowed to flourish would destroy the benefit of a written Constitution and undermine the basis of our government.
 * Justice Hugo Black, Reid v. Covert 354 U.S. 1 (1957)

 * Can any of you seriously say the Bill of Rights could get through Congress today? It wouldn’t even get out of committee.
 * F. Lee Bailey, Newsweek, 17 April 1967.

 * Marco Respinti, an Italian journalist and scholar who serves as director-in-charge of Bitter Winter, concluded the session with a reflection on the discussions that led to the approval of the American Constitution and its first ten amendments, known as the Bill of Rights. He emphasized that the founding fathers of the United States insisted both on freedom of religion or belief and on tax justice. They knew that taxes can be used to persecute minorities, and they saw the connection between religious persecution and discrimination through taxes. These may seem [to be] very old discussions, dating back to the late 18th century, Respinti said, but in fact the Tai Ji Men case in Taiwan shows that they are very much relevant today. The Tai Ji Men case demonstrates that the fathers of the American Constitution and the Bill of Rights were right, Respinti concluded, when they expressed the fear that taxes may be used as a tool of religious discrimination.
 * Daniela Bovolenta, "The Tai Ji Men Case at the European Academy of Religion", Bitter Winter (July 7, 2022)

 * Bills of rights give assurance to the individual of the preservation of his liberty. They do not define the liberty they promise.
 * Benjamin N. Cardozo, The Paradoxes of Legal Science (1928)

 * We have subjected enormous numbers of people to contact with these poisons, without their consent and often without their knowledge. If the Bill of Rights contains no guarantee that a citizen shall be secure against lethal poisons distributed either by private individuals or by public officials, it is surely only because our forefathers, despite their considerable wisdom and foresight, could conceive of no such problem.
 * Rachel Carson Silent Spring (1962)

 * Plainly, a community may not suppress, or the state tax, the dissemination of views because they are unpopular, annoying or distasteful. If that device were ever sanctioned, there would have been forged a ready instrument for the suppression of the faith which any minority cherishes but which does not happen to be in favor. That would be a complete repudiation of the philosophy of the Bill of Rights.
 * Justice William O. Douglas, Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105 (1943), at 115, Opinion of the Court.

 * The first eight Amendments to the Constitution have been made applicable to the States only in part. My view has been that, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, its Due Process Clause incorporated all of those Amendments. See Adamson v. California, 332 U. S. 46, 332 U. S. 68 (dissenting opinion). Although the history of the Fourteenth Amendment may not be conclusive, the words "due process" acquired specific meaning from Anglo-American experience. [Footnote 2/7] As MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN recently stated, "The Bill of Rights is the primary source of expressed information as to what is meant by constitutional liberty. The safeguards enshrined in it are deeply etched in the foundations of America's freedoms." The Bill of Rights and the States (1961), 36 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 761, 776. When the Framers wrote the Bill of Rights, they enshrined in the form of constitutional guarantees those rights -- in part substantive, in part procedural -- which experience indicated were indispensable to a free society. Some would disagree as to their importance; the debate concerning them did indeed start before their adoption and has continued to this day. Yet the constitutional conception of "due process" must, in my view, include them all until and unless there are amendments that remove them.
 * Justice William O. Douglas, Poe v. Ullman, 319 U.S. 105 (1943), at 515-516, dissenting.

 * This case involves a cancer in our body politic. It is a measure of the disease which afflicts us. Army surveillance, like Army regimentation, is at war with the principles of the First Amendment. Those who already walk submissively will say there is no cause for alarm. But submissiveness is not our heritage. The First Amendment was designed to allow rebellion to remain as our heritage. The Constitution was designed to keep government off the backs of the people. The Bill of Rights was added to keep the precincts of belief and expression, of the press, of political and social activities free from surveillance. The Bill of Rights was designed to keep agents of government and official eavesdroppers away from assemblies of people. The aim was to allow men to be free and independent and to assert their rights against government. There can be no influence more paralyzing of that objective than Army surveillance. When an intelligence officer looks over every nonconformist's shoulder in the library, or walks invisibly by his side in a picket line, or infiltrates his club, the America once extolled as the voice of liberty heard around the world no longer is cast in the image which Jefferson and Madison designed, but more in the Russian image.'''
 * Justice William O. Douglas, Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. 1 (1972), dissenting.

 * In recent years it has been suggested that the Second Amendment protects the "collective" right of states to maintain militias, while it does not protect the right of "the people" to keep and bear arms...The phrase "the people" meant the same thing in the Second Amendment as it did in the First, Fourth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments — that is, each and every free person. A select militia defined as only the privileged class entitled to keep and bear arms was considered an anathema to a free society, in the same way that Americans denounced select spokesmen approved by the government as the only class entitled to the freedom of the press. If anyone entertained this notion in the period during which the Constitution and Bill of Rights were debated and ratified, it remains one of the most closely guarded secrets of the 18th century, for no known writing surviving from the period between 1787 and 1791 states such a thesis.
 * Stephen P. Holbrook, That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right

 * The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities, and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.

 * 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, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943), at. 641.

 * I will therefore make up the deficiency by adding a few words on the Constitution proposed by our Convention. [...] I will now add what I do not like. First the omission of a bill of rights providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction against monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land and not by the law of Nations. [...] Let me add that a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.
 * Thomas Jefferson, From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 20 December 1787. In: Founders Online. Provided by the United States National Archives and Records Administration. Archived from the original on January 30, 2023. Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 12, 7 August 1787 – 31 March 1788, ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955, pp. 438–443.

 * Education on the value of free speech and the other freedoms reserved by the Bill of Rights, about what happens when you don't have them, and about how to exercise and protect them, should be an essential prerequisite for being an American citizen — or indeed a citizen of any nation, the more so to the degree that such rights remain unprotected. If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us. In every country, 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. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.
 * Carl Sagan,, Ch. 25: Real Patriots Ask Questions

 * Under our Constitution, anonymous pamphleteering is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and of dissent. Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. … It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation--and their ideas from suppression--at the hand of an intolerant society. The right to remain anonymous may be abused when it shields fraudulent conduct. But political speech by its nature will sometimes have unpalatable consequences, and, in general, our society accords greater weight to the value of free speech than to the dangers of its misuse.
 * John Paul Stevens, McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission (Majority opinion, 514 U.S. 334 (1995)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: United States Bill of Rights


text:
Theism

Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists. In a more specific sense, theism is commonly a monotheistic doctrine concerning the nature of a deity, and that deity's relationship to the universe. Theism, in this specific sense, conceives of God as personal, present and active in the governance and organization of the world and the universe. As such theism describes the classical conception of God that is found in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Sikhism and Hinduism. Scientifically correct, Atheism sucks. God, I know your there, so please bless me and get me to Alaska, I hate Virginia and I want to leave. If you love me, please get me to Alaska, Amen.

Quotes

 * Our theism is the purification of the human mind. Man can paint, or make, or think nothing but man. He believes that the great material elements had their origin from his thought.
 * Ralph Waldo Emerson, Uses of Great Men, Representative Men (1850).

 * What terrible questions we are learning to ask! The former men believed in magic, by which temples, cities, and men were swallowed up, and all trace of them gone. We are coming on the secret of a magic which sweeps out of men’s minds all vestige of theism and beliefs which they and their fathers held and were framed upon.
 * Ralph Waldo Emerson, Illusions, The Conduct of Life (1860).

 * Even in ordinary speech we call a person unreasonable whose outlook is narrow, who is conscious of one thing only at a time, and who is consequently the prey of his own caprice, whilst we describe a person as reasonable whose outlook is comprehensive, who is capable of looking at more than one side of a question and of grasping a number of details as parts of a whole.
 * G. Dawes Hicks, The Philosophical Bases of Theism, p. 128, New York (1937).

 * It must appear impossible, that theism could, from reasoning, have been the primary religion of human race, and have afterwards, by its corruption, given birth to polytheism and to all the various superstitions of the heathen world. Reason, when obvious, prevents these corruptions: When abstruse, it keeps the principles entirely from the knowledge of the vulgar, who are alone liable to corrupt any principle or opinion.
 * David Hume, The Natural History of Religion, sect. 1, p. 312 (1898).

 * Theism and atheism bear equally upon an idol. They remain enemies, but fraternal enemies, in a common and impassable idolatry. Of such idolatry Nietzsche gives the best and final illustration, by demonstrating in exemplary fashion the ... functions held by the idol...
 * Jean-Luc Marion, God Without Being (1991), p. 57 3. The Crossing of Being; 1. The Silence of the Idol

title: Theism


text:
User talk:Wesley~enwikiquote

Wesley, I don't understand the point of the pages you've recently added. They appear to be pages that would be better suited for Wikipedia, as opposed to Wikiquote -- which is supposed to be a collection of quotes, rather than an encyclopedia. Unless those pages contain quotes about the subject, they will most likely be deleted at some point. ~ UDScott 17:47, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Wesley. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Wesley~enwikiquote that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:38, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 06:00, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Wesley~enwikiquote


text:
Talk:Enya

help -- 169.244.143.115 18:00, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

 * Done. I've replaced the minimal introductory text with Wikipedia's intro paragraph, added quotes from and about her (including some lyrics), and added references, external links, and categories. I've also added link boxes to both this and the WP article so they point to each other. Therefore, I've removed all the cleanup and stub tags, leaving only the mandatory VFD tag until the vote is closed. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 11:21, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

 * By the way, I may have fleshed out this article, but frankly, I think quoting Enya is like staring at the fingers of the Mona Lisa, or watching Casablanca with one eye closed and the sound turned off. What makes her music great is the holistic combination of her layered voicing, her lyrics, and her ethereal music, little of which comes through in the printed word. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 20:13, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

~ MosheZadka (Talk) 12:44, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Does Wikiquote have featured articles?
What a wonderful article! The pictures go very well and the formatting is nice. Featured article candidate, IMHO. (If, that is, there are featured articles/people/themes/whatever-we-want-to-call-them in Wikiquote). Tamino 08:09, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
 * There are not featured "articles" as such, but I do try to spiff up the pages from which the "Quote of the day" is selected, to the extent that I have the time. I had figured I would probably select Enya for the last day or two, but I ended up finding the quote I actually used only minutes before posting it, and really hadn't worked much on the page until after that selection. I also try and find good images to match some of the best quotes or their themes, and am very pleased when they work out well, as I think they have here. ~ Kalki 09:06, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Lyrics for "A Moment Lost"
I checked this site for the lyrics, knowing most of them and found the second verse missing. It begins with "How strong, how brave, how true..." Will the lyrics, please, be edited adding the entire second verse? I would greatly appreciate it.

Unsourced

 * A lot of people know "Enya" the music, but they don't know what I look like, or what I do. And I think that that's really good… for me, and for the music as well.

 * People listen to the music and sense what it is about. Sometimes they know exactly what the songs are about, sometimes they interpret their own meaning to the music, and that's great when this happens because it shows it's striking a chord.

title: Talk:Enya


text:
User:Silsor~enwikiquote

m:user:silsor

title: User:Silsor~enwikiquote


text:
Constitutions

A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is. When these principles are written down into a single collection or set of legal documents, those documents may be said to comprise a written constitution.

Quotes

 * The problem in any constitutional change is the great care put to solve the problems of the past instead of grasping those of the future.
 * (fr) Le défaut inhérent à tout changement constitutionnel tient au grand soin mis à régler les problèmes du passé au lieu de saisir ceux de l’avenir.
 * , Droit constitutionnel 2: Les Démocraties (3rd ed.). Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2000, p. 105

 * A constitution, as Solon said, is good for a certain people and for a certain time. It shouldn’t be mummified.
 * (fr) Une constitution, comme disait Solon, est bonne pour un peuple et pour un temps. Il ne faut pas la momifier.
 * Charles de Gaulle, quoted in Alain Peyrefitte: C’était De Gaulle. Paris: Gallimard, 2002, p. 250

 * A constitution is made of a spirit, institutions, and a practice.
 * (fr) Une constitution, c’est un esprit, des institutions, une pratique.
 * Charles de Gaulle, Press Conference on 31 January 1964, Élysée Palace, Paris

 * The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.
 * Edward Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1838), chapter 3, third paragraph, p. 33.

 * If a written constitution is not in close accord with the way the society itself is constituted, it will be irrelevant to the everyday life of the people. A constitution will be a failure if it is no more than a beautiful portrait of an ugly society. But it must be more than an accurate depiction of how the society is constituted. A good constitution provides guidance and structure for the improvement of the society. A good constitution is designed to make the political society better than it is and the citizens better persons. It must be enough like the institutions and the people to be relevant to the working of the society, but it should also have what might be called formative features, a capacity to make us better if we live according to its provisions and adhere to its institutional arrangements.
 * Robert Goldwin, Why Blacks, Women, and Jews Are Not Mentioned in the Constitution, and Other Unorthodox Views (January 1990), AEI Press

 * Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things.
 * Alexander Hamilton, Speech in the United States Senate (June 28, 1788), reported in Henry Cabot Lodge, ed., The works of Alexander Hamilton: Volume 2 (1904), p. 80.

 * Constitutions are intended to preserve practical and substantial rights, not to maintain theories.
 * Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Davis v. Mills, 194 U.S. 451, 457 (1904).

 * Now and then, an extraordinary case may turn up, but constitutional law, like other mortal contrivances, has to take some chances, and in the great majority of instances, no doubt, justice will be done.
 * Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Blinn v. Nelson, 222 U.S. 1, 7 (1911).

 * By reducing too the faculty of borrowing within it's natural limits, it would bridle the spirit of war, to which too free a course has been procured by the inattention of money -lenders to this law of nature, that succeeding generations are not responsible for the preceding. On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual Constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct. They are masters too of their own persons, and consequently may govern them as they please. But persons and property make the sum of the objects of government. The constitution and the laws of their predecessors extinguished then in their natural course with those who gave them being. This could preserve that being till it ceased to be itself, and no longer. Every constitution then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years.
 * Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison (September 6, 1789); reported in Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Memoirs, Correspondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson (1829), volume 3, p. 31.

 * 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.
 * Thomas Jefferson, letter to H. Tompkinson (AKA Samuel Kercheval) (12 July 1816).

 * I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
 * Thomas Jefferson, letter to H. Tompkinson (AKA Samuel Kercheval) (12 July 1816).

 * I was always for the liberties of the people for putting water to quench fire, or for putting banks to prevent inundation.
 * John Lambert on the Instrument of Government (1653), England’s first constitution, in Diary of Thomas Burton, 4: Member in the Parliaments of Oliver and Richard Cromwell from 1656 to 1659, Volume 3, p. 63. Henry Colburn, 1828

 * Once a would-be authoritarian makes it to power, democracies face a second critical test: Will the autocratic leader subvert democratic institutions or be constrained by them? Institutions alone are not enough to rein in elected autocrats. Constitutions must be defended—by political parties and organized citizens, but also by democratic norms. Without robust norms, constitutional checks and balances do not serve as the bulwarks of democracy we imagine them to be. Institutions become political weapons, wielded forcefully by those who control them against those who do not. This is how elected autocrats subvert democracy—packing and “weaponizing” the courts and other neutral agencies, buying off the media and the private sector (or bullying them into silence), and rewriting the rules of politics to tilt the playing field against opponents. The tragic paradox of the electoral route to authoritarianism is that democracy’s assassins use the very institutions of democracy—gradually, subtly, and even legally—to kill it.
 * Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt (2018) How Democracies Die. New York: Crown.

 * A constitution that is made for all nations is made for none; it is a pure abstraction, an academic exercise made according to some hypothetical ideal, which should be addressed to man in his imaginary dwelling place.
 * What is a constitution? Is it not merely the solution of the following problem? Given the population, the mores, the religion, the geographic situation, the political circumstances, the wealth, the good and the bad qualities of a particular nation, to find the laws that suit it.
 * Joseph de Maistre, Considerations on France (1796), ch. VI

 * A constitution should be short and obscure.
 * Attributed to Napoleon; reported in John Holland Rose, The Life of Napoleon I (1901), "Œuvres," volume iii, p. 428.
 * The Weimar Constitution is not a socialist constitution. But we stand by the principles enshrined in it—the principles of a state based on the rule of law, of equal rights, of social justice. In this historic hour, we German Social Democrats solemnly pledge ourselves to the principles of humanity and justice, of freedom and socialism. No Enabling Act gives you the power to destroy ideas that are eternal and indestructible.
 * Otto Wels, Speech Against the Passage of the Enabling Act, 1933

title: Constitutions