Rights Quotes

1776: A declaration of the Parlement of Paris:The first rule of justice is to conserve for each individual that which belongs to him. This is a fundamental rule of natural law, human rights and civil government; a rule which consists not only in maintaining the rights of property, but also those rights vested in the individual and derived from prerogatives of birth and social position.

~ Hilary Mantel

We need to bless instead of condemning, we need to learn to stand for the truth of God and for our rights

~ Sunday Adelaja

We recklessly attempt to disguise our ‘greed’ by dressing it in the garb of other nobler ideals such as ‘rights’ and ‘privileges.’ Yet, if we dare dress ‘greed’ in an authentic sense of thankfulness, greed will suffocate within the folds of that very clothing.

~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of those privileges.

~ Booker T. Washington

When it comes to animal agriculture, there is conventional, which is really hideous, and compassionate or certified humane or whatever, which *may* be *slightly* less hideous. But it's all torture. It's all wrong. These happy gimmicks are just designed to make the public feel better about exploiting animals. Don't buy the propaganda of happy exploitation. Go vegan and promote veganism.

~ Gary L. Francione

Burst down those closet doors once and for all, and stand up and start to fight.

~ Harvey Milk

It's not my victory, it's yours and yours and yours. If a gay can win, it means there is hope that the system can work for all minorities if we fight. We've given them hope.

~ Harvey Milk

I had my first amendment rights removed by a USA judge for a video that I recorded in the public sidewalk. The right to free speech and freedom of the press only partially exists in the USA.

~ Steven Magee

The rights we have as free individuals is the right to choose as we please.

~ Steven Redhead

Lord lead us to the right places.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

There are no rights and wrongs. Just lessons, lessons and more lessons. With hopefully a little fun in-between.

~ Brownell Landrum

You don't have the right to hold somebody accountable for standards you refuse to apply to yourself.

~ Stephen A. Smith

Only God is capable of telling us what our rights and needs are. You have to surrender that right to Him.

~ Joni Eareckson Tada

The urge to lie is produced by the contradictions in our lives. We are made to declare love for our country, while it tramples our rights and dignity.

~ Barbara Kingsolver

There are many ways to honor America. This book is mine. I have completed this journey of self-education in the belief that the most terrifying possibility since 9/11 has not been terrorism--as frightening as that is--but the prospect that Americans will give up their rights in pursuing the chimera of security.

~ David K. Shipler

No despotism, no privileged monopolies, no police societies, no divine rights of the emirs or feudal landlords or shady priests and sheikhs. All had the same equal footing—the rich and the poor, the noble and the common.

~ Rami Ollaik

If we do not believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we do not believe in it at all.

~ Noam Chomsky

Any human being has a fundamental right to fight for their rights, but that (own right) can not include anything that is fundamentally trying to deny others what is their fundamental right.The root of Tyranny of Majority that Telangana is witnessing in India since 1956 and is expected to end in early 2014

~ Venkat Gandhi

This is no simple reform. It really is a revolution. Sex and race because they are easy and visible differences have been the primary ways of organizing human beings into superior and inferior groups and into the cheap labor on which this system still depends. We are talking about a society in which there will be no roles other than those chosen or those earned. We are really talking about humanism.

~ Gloria Steinem

Political rights do not originate in parliaments; they are, rather, forced upon parliaments from without. And even their enactment into law has for a long time been no guarantee of their security. Just as the employers always try to nullify every concession they had made to labor as soon as opportunity offered, as soon as any signs of weakness were observable in the workers’ organizations, so governments also are always inclined to restrict or to abrogate completely rights and freedoms that have been achieved if they imagine that the people will put up no resistance. Even in those countries where such things as freedom of the press, right of assembly, right of combination, and the like have long existed, governments are constantly trying to restrict those rights or to reinterpret them by juridical hair-splitting. Political rights do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the violent resistance of the populace. Where this is not the case, there is no help in any parliamentary Opposition or any Platonic appeals to the constitution.

~ Rudolf Rocker

One of the biggest contradictions in self-proclaimed open-mindedness is to say that we're all one but when a true bigot comes around tell him we're all different. It's usually the case that neither side is correct. One might have the right to do something, anything, but sure enough, that doesn't mean it's right and a benefit to other people.

~ Criss Jami

Instead, every precaution was taken not to violate his rights. Remember, many administrators have no difficulty in expelling a student who utters an unwelcome opinion about the immorality of homosexuality.

~ James C. Dobson

Over the years I have come to understand three things about the police: 1) They cover up virtually everything involving a police officer. 2) They will not enforce the laws for people that they do not like. 3) They will target people that they do not like for prosecution using various techniques that include unwarranted stops, drug testing, faked police reports, tickets, fines, blatantly mislead the judge at court, and removal of USA federal rights.

~ Steven Magee

This is why we all fight so hard. Not just for the vote, but for an equal opportunity in the world. A vote is a voice. I think you underestimate yourself, Queenie. This is your fight, same as it is mine.

~ Sharon Biggs Waller

There are no rogue ships, there are only rogue shipowners.

~ Barista Uno

Adoptee rights are everyone's rights, and they deserve to be protected.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Human Rights calls for responsible behavior on the part of every individual being, and the society at large. As entwined portion of rights, duties follow, thereby it calls for performance of duties such as practicing nonviolence, solving conflicts with a dialogue, respect for the other individual or a nation, respect for human rights of other individuals etc

~ Hafiz

..Thus it can be said that ‘Human Rights’ is an ever expanding subject, which grows in leaps and bounds with the evolution of knowledge, development of the society and the advancement of the world at large, thereby encompassing within its ambit newer forms of right/s as and when recognized as an inalienable ‘right’ , along with wrapped-in duties; duties, on the part of the state, the government, the human rights organizations on one hand, and duties incumbent on individuals as responsible beings owing their allegiance to the society, the society itself , and the world at large on the other...

~ Henrietta Newton Martin

True unalienable rights do not require one to trample other unalienable rights.

~ J.s.b. Morse

I am not so much concerned with the right of everyone to say anything he pleases as I am about our need as self-governing people to hear everything relevant.

~ John F. Kennedy

Liberty is always unfinished business.

~ Anonymous

Rights that do not flow from duty well performed are not worth having.

~ Mahatma Gandhi

The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited he must not make himself a nuisance to other people.

~ John Stuart Mill

We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression - everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want...everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear... anywhere in the world.

~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Yes 'n' how many years can some people exist before they're allowed to be free? Yes. 'n' how many times can a man turn his head pretending he just doesn't see? The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind.

~ Bob Dylan

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of their country but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny like hell is not easily conquered yet we have this consolation with us that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph.

~ Thomas Paine

It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in cases involving not very nice people.

~ Felix Frankfurter

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.

~ Learned Hand

Liberty is always dangerous - but it is the safest thing we have.

~ Harry Emerson Fosdick

Let the word go forth from this time and place to friend and foe alike that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans - born in this century tempered by war disciplined by a hard and bitter peace proud of our ancient heritage - and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed and to which we are committed today at home and around the world. Let every nation know whether it wishes us well or ill that we shall pay any price bear any burden meet any hardship support any friend oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1 000 days nor in the life of this administration nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin. Now the trumpet summons us again - not as a call to bear arms though arms we need - not as a call to battle though embattled we are - but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle year in and year out rejoicing in hope patient in tribulation- a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny poverty disease and war itself. And so my fellow Americans ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country . My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

~ John F. Kennedy