Rights Quotes

• I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Meaningful, Nature, Compassion

  93 Copy quote

• He had drawn many a thousand of these rations in prisons and camps, and though he'd never had an opportunity to weight them on scales, and although, being a man of timid nature, he knew no way of standing up for his rights, he, like every other prisoner, had discovered long ago that honest weight was never to be found in the bread-cutting. There was short weight in every ration. The only point was how short. So every day you took a look to soothe your soul - today, maybe, they haven't snitched any.

  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  Cutting, Opportunity, Men

  8 Copy quote

• The constitution of Soviet Russia must insure equal rights for all citizens regardless of sex, creed, race, or nationality.

  Vladimir Lenin

  Sex, Russia, Race

  12 Copy quote

• The oppressed should rebel, and they will continue to rebel and raise disturbance until their civil rights are fully restored to them and all partial distinctions, exlusions, and incapacitations are removed.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Adoption, Rebel, Should

  Thomas Jefferson, Martin Alfred Larson (1981). “Jefferson, magnificent populist”, Devin-Adair Pub

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• I hear Republicans and Libertarians and so forth talking about property rights, but they stop talking about property rights as soon as the subject of American Indians comes up, because they know fully well, perhaps not in a fully articulated, conscious form, but they know fully well that the basis for the very system of endeavor and enterprise and profitability to which they are committed and devoted accrues on the basis of theft of the resources of someone else. They are in possession of stolen property. They know it. They all know it. It's a dishonest endeavor from day one.

  Ward Churchill

  Talking, Libertarian, Republican

  Z Magazine, vol. 8, p. 32,

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• The issue of human rights is one of the most fundamental human issues and also one of the most sensitive and controversial.

  Ali Khamenei

  Issues, Fundamentals, Controversial

  70 Copy quote
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  America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America.

  Jimmy Carter

  Inspirational, Motivational, Real

  Jimmy Carter (1995). “Talking Peace: A Vision for the Next Generation”, Puffin

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• Government should work to insure the rights of the individual, not plot to take them away.

  Lyn Nofziger

  Government, Plot, Individual

  7 Copy quote

• There is but one honest limit to the rights of a sentient being; it is where they touch the rights of another sentient being.

  Frances Wright

  Limits, Honest, Sentient Beings

  Frances Wright (1829). “Course of popular lectures; with 3 addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789”, p.27

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• The rights of one sex, political and otherwise, are the same as those of the other sex, and this equality of rights ought to be fully recognized.

  Leland Stanford

  Sex, Equality, Political

  7 Copy quote

• To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.

  Nelson Mandela

  Inspirational, Motivational, Inspiring

  Twitter post from Mar 21, 2016

  29 Copy quote

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• Human rights are not only violated by terrorism, repression or assassination, but also by unfair economic structures that creates huge inequalities.

  Pope Francis

  Economic Inequality, Terrorism, Unfair

  "Pope Francis: the humble pontiff with practical approach to poverty" by Mark Rice-Oxley, www.theguardian.com. March 13, 2013.

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• We have a right to believe whatever we want, but not everything we believe is right.

  Ravi Zacharias

  Inspirational, Christian, Wisdom

  FaceBook post by Ravi Zacharias from Feb 26, 2014

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  No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.

  Alice Walker

  Friendship, Fake Friends, Memorable

  Alice Walker (2013). “The Alice Walker Collection: Non-Fiction”, p.17, Hachette UK

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• Whoever claims the right to redistribute the wealth produced by others is claiming the right to treat human beings as chattel.

  Ayn Rand

  Money, Liberty, Novelists

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.219, Penguin

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• The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to 'create' rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting.

  William J. Brennan

  Freedom, Government, Liberty

  66 Copy quote

• One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Religious, Responsibility

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2011). “Why We Can't Wait”, p.60, Beacon Press

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• If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

  George Orwell

  Inspirational, Life, Freedom

  "The Freedom of the Press" (1945)

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• Not every person is going to understand you and that's okay. They have a right to their opinion and you have every right to ignore it.

  Joel Osteen

  Inspirational, Life, Attitude

  86 Copy quote

• I support anyone's right to be who they want to be. My question is: to what extent do I have to participate in your self-image?

  Dave Chappelle

  Self, Support, African American

  "Banned Harry Hill gag shows a shift in attitudes to both comedy and gender" by Brian Logan, www.theguardian.com. September 29, 2016.

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• A right delayed is a right denied.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Rejection, Political

  19 Copy quote

• To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching.

  Warren E. Burger

  Teacher, Teaching, Would Be

  "Does the same-sex marriage ruling mean trouble for other LGBT rights cases?" by Scott Lemieux, www.theguardian.com. June 26, 2015.

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• the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Law, Majority Rule, Would Be

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1801

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• Sharing experience and building public support for the full range of rights is more powerful than legal cases.

  Mary Robinson

  Powerful, Support, Building

  Source: www.opendemocracy.net

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• The first thing that has to happen is the protection of voting rights and registration.

  Jesse Jackson

  Voting, Firsts, Protection

  Source: praisecharlotte.hellobeautiful.com

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