Rights Quotes - Page 3

• It was never the people who complained of the universality of human rights, nor did the people consider human rights as a Western or Northern imposition. It was often their leaders who did so.

  Vaclav Havel

  People, Leader, Western

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• Those rights, then, which God and nature have established, and are therefore called natural rights, such as life and liberty, need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by the municipal laws to be inviolate. On the contrary, no human legislature has power to abridge or destroy them, unless the owner shall himself commit some act that amounts to a forfeiture.

  William Blackstone

  Men, Law, Liberty

  William Blackstone (1922). “Commentaries on the Laws of England: In Four Books”, p.45, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

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• Every man has by the law of nature a right to such a waste portion of the earth as is necessary for his subsistence.

  Thomas More

  Men, Law, Earth

  Thomas More (2009). “Utopia”, p.38, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Our patriotic fervor was the result of the old and widespread belief in the idea of American exceptionalism, the idea that America was a new thing in history, different from other countries. Other nations had evolved one way or another, evolved from tribes from a gathering of clans, from inevitabilities of language and tradition and geography. But America was born, and born of ideas: that all men are created equal, that they have been given by God certain rights that can be taken from them by no man, and that those rights combine to create a thing called freedom.

  Peggy Noonan

  Country, Business, Taken

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• Be as beneficent as the sun or the sea, but if your rights as a rational being are trenched on, die on the first inch of your territory.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sea, Territory, Firsts

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1960). “The Journals”

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  The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it.

  Chief Joseph

  Mother, Native American, Should Have

  Lincoln Hall Speech in Washington D.C., January 14, 1879.

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  No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.

  Robin Williams

  Inspirational, Change, Philosophy

  "Robin Williams: Genie in the Lamp" by Alex Kip, www.huffingtonpost.com. August 14, 2014.

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• We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Inspiring, Women, 4th Of July

  Declaration of Sentiments, First Woman's Rights

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• There is no contradiction between effective law enforcement and respect for civil and human rights.

  Dorothy Height

  Law, Enforcement, Contradiction

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• Civil Rights: What black folks are given in the U.S. on the installment plan, as in civil-rights bills. Not to be confused with human rights, which are the dignity, stature, humanity, respect, and freedom belonging to all people by right of their birth.

  Dick Gregory

  Respect, Confused, People

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• They made and recorded a sort of institute and digest of anarchy, called the rights of man.

  Edmund Burke

  Men, Anarchy, Made

  Edmund Burke, James BURKE (Barrister-at-Law.) (1854). “The Speeches of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, with Memoir and Historical Introductions. By James Burke”, p.430

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• There are those who say to you - we are rushing this issue of civil rights. I say we are 172 years late.

  Hubert H. Humphrey

  Hippie, Years, Rushing

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• Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world ... Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Inspiring, Children, Home

  Eleanor Roosevelt, Allida Mae Black (2013). “Courage in a Dangerous World: The Political Writings of Eleanor Roosevelt”, p.190, Columbia University Press

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• We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Change, Happiness

  Declaration of Independence (1776).

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• Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Wisdom, Peace, Kings

  "Letter from Birmingham Jail," 16 Apr. 1963

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• I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.

  Thomas Paine

  Change, Freedom, Equality

  Thomas Paine (2015). “The Thomas Paine Collection: Common Sense, Rights of Man, Age of Reason, An Essay on Dream, Biblical Blasphemy, Examination Of The Prophecies”, p.222, Ravenio Books

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• All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Patriotic, Equality

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1801

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• The struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma is a struggle for life and dignity. It is a struggle that encompasses our political, social and economic aspirations.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Struggle, Political, Democracy

  Aung San Suu Kyi's Opening Keynote Address at NGO Forum on Women, Beijing China, gos.sbc.edu. August 31, 1995.

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• From the equality of rights springs identity of our highest interests; you cannot subvert your neighbor's rights without striking a dangerous blow at your own.

  Carl Schurz

  Freedom, Spring, Blow

  Carl Schurz, Frederic Bancroft (1913). “Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl Schurz”, Putnam Juvenile

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• It has long been recognized that an essential element in protecting human rights was a widespread knowledge among the population of what their rights are and how they can be defended.

  Boutros Boutros-Ghali

  Knowledge, Long, Essentials

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• The right to development is the measure of the respect of all other human rights.That should be our aim: a situation in which all individuals are enabled to maximize their potential, and to contribute to the evolution of society as a whole.

  Kofi Annan

  Society, Development, Evolution

  FaceBook post by Kofi Annan from Dec 10, 2016

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• Anglo-Saxon civilization has taught the individual to protect his own rights; American civilization will teach him to respect the rights of others.

  William Jennings Bryan

  Teaching, Civilization, Taught

  WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN (1899). “REPUBLIC OR EMPIRE?”

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• I think one of my father's great legacies is the people that he inspired and the generation that he inspired transformed America through civil rights, women's rights, equal justice, and they've passed that on to their children and grandchildren.

  Caroline Kennedy

  Children, Father, Thinking

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• Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.

  Hypatia

  Inspirational, Wisdom, Philosophy

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• People have the right to call themselves whatever they like. That doesn't bother me. It's other people doing the calling that bothers me.

  Octavia Butler

  Freedom, Equality, People

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