Civil Rights Quotes - Page 20

• My family was very engaged in the world around us. My father was an African Methodist Episcopal minister and an immigrant from Panama. He was deeply involved in civil rights causes, which scared my mother - she was also an immigrant, from Barbados, who had her hands full with six kids, and she worried that my father would get deported. But because of his passion for politics and civil rights, we paid close attention to current events. We would watch political conventions together - for fun!

  Gwen Ifill

  Mother, Fun, Father

  Source: www.oprah.com

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• You got to understand, Arthur Alexander was there with us, and some of his crew. It was in the '50s in Alabama. It was before even the civil rights stuff even started. You can imagine the hatred, although we didn't have it as bad as other parts of the country, I must say.

  Donnie Fritts

  Country, Rights, Hatred

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• You are losing because blacks are getting their civil rights in the cities.

  David Remnick

  Rights, Cities, Losing

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• All of the civil rights problems during the past years have created a situation where America right now is moving toward a police state. You can't have anything otherwise. So that's your supposition.

  Malcolm X

  Moving, Past, Rights

  Source: nyx.uky.edu

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• The legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Government, Religion

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.397, Cambridge University Press

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• Our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability to God alone.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Accountability, Principles, Positive Atheism

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• It is time enough, for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere [in the propagation of religious teachings] when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Teaching, Government

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• No government can be maintained without the principle of fear as well as duty. Good men will obey the last, but bad ones the former only. If our government ever fails, it will be from this weakness.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Good Man, Weakness

  Thomas Jefferson (2011). “The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, Volume 7: 28 November 1813 to 30 September 1814”, p.648, Princeton University Press

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• Every man is under the natural duty of contributing to the necessities of the society; and this is all the laws should enforce on him.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Law, Natural

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.143, Cambridge University Press

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• I... [am] convinced [man] has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Separation Of Church And State, Natural

  Thomas Jefferson, John Dewey (1940). “John Dewey Presents the Living Thoughts of Thomas Jefferson”

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• There is a debt of service due from every man to his country, proportioned to the bounties which nature and fortune have measured to him.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Men, Debt

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private”, p.152

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• I acknowledge that such a debt [of service to my fellow-citizens] exists, that a tour of duty in whatever line he can be most useful to his country, is due from every individual. It is not easy perhaps to say of what length exactly that tour should be, but we may safely say of what length it should not be. Not of our whole life, for instance, for that would be to be born a slave-not even of a very large portion of it.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Would Be, Citizens

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• The man who loves his country on its own account, and not merely for its trappings of interest or power, can never be divorced for it, can never refuse to come forward when he finds that she is engaged in dangers which he has the means of warding off.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Mean, Men

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson”, p.360

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• It behooves our citizens to be on their guard, to be firm in their principles, and full of confidence in themselves. We are able to preserve our self-government if we will but think so.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Thinking, Government, Self

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private”, p.320

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• Lethargy is the forerunner of death to the public liberty.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Patriotism, Liberty, Right To Bear Arms

  Thomas Jefferson, John Dewey (2008). “The Essential Jefferson”, p.66, Courier Corporation

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• I am entirely persuaded that the agitations of the public mind advance its powers, and that at every vibration between the points of liberty and despotism, something will be gained for the former. As men become better informed, their rulers must respect them the more.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Mind, Liberty

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.177, Cambridge University Press

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• The people of every country are the only safe guardians of their own rights, and are the only instruments which can be used for their destruction. And certainly they would never consent to be so used were they not deceived. To avoid this they should be instructed to a certain degree.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Rights, People

  Thomas Jefferson (1984). “Jefferson: Writings”, p.1601, Library of America

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• Virginia States' rights, as our forefathers conceived it, was a protection of the right of the individual citizen. Those who preach most frequently about states' rights today are not those seeking the protection of the individual citizen, but his exploitation. The time is long past — if indeed it ever existed — when we should permit the noble concept of states' rights to be betrayed.

  Robert Kennedy

  Past, Rights, Long

  "America the Beautiful".

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• Most codes extend their definitions of treason to acts not really against one's country. They do not distinguish between acts against the government, and acts against the oppressions of the government. The latter are virtues, yet have furnished more victims to the executioner than the former. Real treasons are rare; oppressions frequent. The unsuccessful strugglers against tyranny have been the chief martyrs of treason laws in all countries.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Real, Government

  Thomas Jefferson (1861). “Correspondence”, p.353

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• Time indeed changes manners and notions, and so far we must expect institutions to bend to them. But time produces also corruption of principles, and against this it is the duty of good citizens to be ever on the watch, and if the gangrene is to prevail at last, let the day be kept off as long as possible.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Long, Principles, Watches

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1816-1826”, p.201, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The Christian religion, when divested of the rags in which they [the clergy] have enveloped it, and brought to the original purity and simplicity of it's benevolent institutor, is a religion of all others most friendly to liberty, science, and the freest expansion of the human mind.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Christian, Simplicity, Mind

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson”, p.463

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• Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker, in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Religion, Matter

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1808-1816”, p.292, Cosimo, Inc.

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  The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Abandon, Presses, Falsehood

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. X (in 12 Volumes): Correspondence and Papers 1803-1807”, p.368, Cosimo, Inc.

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• [If a book were] very innocent, and one which might be confided to the reason of any man; not likely to be much read if let alone, but if persecuted, it will be generally read. Every man in the United States will think it a duty to buy a copy, in vindication of his right to buy and to read what he pleases.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Book, Men, Thinking

  Thomas Jefferson (1855). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”, p.340

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• The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Southern, Foundation

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.440, Penguin

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