Rights Quotes

...the freedom to bear arms may be righteously rejected to encourage the preservation of all corporeal forms of life.

~ Kevin Alan Lee

Some of us have to fight. There are great traditions of liberty to defend. I am no partisan man. Where I see the infamy I seek to erase it. Party names mean nothing. The tradition of liberty means all. The common people will let it go, oh yes. They will sell liberty for a quieter life. That is why they must be prodded, prodded-.

~ Anthony Burgess

In this confusion we begin to see what lies behind John Paul II's startling warning about democracy effectively mov[ing] towards a form of totalitarianism. It begins to happen at a practical level when we simultaneously hold that rights which arise from the dignity of the person are also a matter of bargaining. New rights can be claimed or created, and whatever privileges can be negotiated around them are then secured by reference to human dignity, even when these new rights are directly contrary to the human dignity of some, for example, the unborn or the elderly sick. This confusion about the nature of rights debases their currency and undermines the first principles of democracy. Such freedom gradually becomes a tyrannical freedom of the 'the strong' against the weak, who have no choice but to submit.

~ George Cardinal Pell

I've been asked a lot for my view on American health care. Well, 'it would be a good idea,' to quote Gandhi.

~ Paul Farmer

Those who have committed no faults want no pardon. We are only defending what we deem our indisputable rights.

~ George Washington

If you're honest, you sooner or later have to confront your values. Then you're forced to separate what is right from what is merely legal. This puts you metaphysically on the run. America is full of metaphysical outlaws.― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

~ Tom Robbins

People have a greater tolerance for evil than for violence. If crooked gamboling, thieving and robing are covered over folks will tolerate it longer than out right violence, even when the violence may be cleansing.

~ Louis L'amour

violence is an evil thing, but when the guns are all in the hands of the men without respect for human rights, then men are really in trouble.

~ Louis L'amour

I care about a lot of issues. I care about libraries, I care about healthcare, I care about homelessness and unemployment. I care about net neutrality and the steady erosion of our liberties both online and off. I care about the rich/poor divide and the rise of corporate business.

~ Sara Sheridan

By increasing the amount of Torah (obligatory religious laws) in the world, they were extending His presence in the world and making it more effective.

~ Karen Armstrong

In the law, rights are islands of empowerment. . . . Rights contain images of power, and manipulating those images, either visually or linguistically, is central in the making and maintenance of rights. In principle, therefore, the more dizzyingly diverse the images that are propagated, the more empowered we will be as a society.

~ Patricia J. Williams

It is unreasonable to expect a known corrupt law enforcement department to uphold your legal rights.

~ Steven Magee

The Fourth Amendment wasn't written for people with nothing to hide any more than the First Amendment was written for people with nothing to say.

~ Dave Krueger

Dead or alive, you will retain all your rights.

~ Robert Sheckley

Another tendency, which is extremely natural to democratic nations and extremely dangerous, is that which leads them to despise and undervalue the rights of private persons. The attachment which men feel to a right, and the respect which they display for it, is generally proportioned to its importance, or to the length of time during which they have enjoyed it. The rights of private persons amongst democratic nations are commonly of small importance, of recent growth, and extremely precarious; the consequence is that they are often sacrificed without regret, and almost always violated without remorse.

~ Alexis De Tocqueville

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

~ Thomas Jefferson

There is no democracy in physics. We can't say that some second-rate guy has as much right to opinion as Fermi.

~ Luis Walter Alvarez

Democracy is a fine thing. But that doesn't mean citizens have a right to run riot whenever they disagree with something.#Page: 120

~ Kazuo Ishiguro

It speaks volumes when people who are discriminated against go on to discriminate against others.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Standing against discrimination for some while supporting discrimination against others hurts us all.

~ Dashanne Stokes

The minute we look away, the minute we stop fighting back, that's the minute bigotry wins.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Bigotry is based on deception, of oneself and of others.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Tolerance of intolerance enables oppression.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Reducing a group to a slur or stereotype reduces us all.

~ Dashanne Stokes

It's illegal to deny people their records due to race or gender. Adoptees deserve the same rights and protections.

~ Dashanne Stokes

You're not under attack when others gain rights and privileges you've always had.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Never be content to sit back and watch as others' rights are trampled upon. Your rights could be next.

~ Dashanne Stokes

If we want to be endowed with rights – real human rights, we have to act with responsibility. We must not be comfortable with rights. We must be comfortable with responsibility.

~ Glenn Beck

America comes with both rights and responsibilities. You have, for example, the right to free speech, but you have the responsibility to not yell 'fire' in a crowded theater. If you don't live up to that responsibility, you face certain consequences. It's a simple but effective formula. Unfortunately, tenured professors are completely insulated from it. They can scream fire in their classrooms all they want - and then hide behind their tenure if anyone questions them on it.

~ Glenn Beck

I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.

~ Robert Frost

If the authorities under various false pretenses, continue curtailing the rights of citizens, so that they merely become serfs to a handful of multinational companies, a global rebellion of ordinary people against super capitalism is certainly not inconceivable.

~ A.j. Beirens

No true love is possible, Lewis demonstrates, until we abandon our claims, our rights, our grievances. Until then we will be trapped in the obscurity of our heart's mixed motives, our will to possess, to control, to be our own gods.

~ Michael D. O'brien

Equality before the law is probably forever unattainable. It is a noble ideal, but it can never be realized, for what men value in this world is not rights but privileges.

~ H.l. Mencken

We all came in on different ships, but we're all in the same boat now

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Whoever claims any right that he is unwilling to accord to his fellow-men is dishonest and infamous.

~ Robert G. Ingersoll

When all men give to all others all the rights they claim for themselves, this world will be civilized.

~ Robert G. Ingersoll

God created us all with his love, to be equally treated.No human being is superior over another.

~ Ellen J. Barrier

EQUAL RIGHTS and FREE DISCUSSION will be fearlessly advocated and maintained. Sectarian dogmas or tenets will be investigated and compared.

~ Abner Cole

Rights are not easy to obtain, and once we understand this, we must work attentively and persistently - and never become careless or lazy.

~ Malalai Joya

Not upholding a persons legal rights is a form of abuse. Unfortunately, USA government abuse of the general public is a normal state of affairs in many areas.

~ Steven Magee