Unalienable Rights Quotes

• Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Rights, Morality

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.459, Penguin

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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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• I think at the heart of the pro-life movement is the idea that all people are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights starting with life.

  Mike Huckabee

  Heart, Thinking, Rights

  "Interview: Mike Huckabee on 'The Gift of Life,' GOP Race, His Future Campaign". Interview with Stephanie Samuel, www.christianpost.com. December 29, 2011.

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• It is evident that the right of acquiring and possessing property, and having it protected, is one of the natural, inherent, and unalienable rights of man. Men have a sense of property: Property is necessary to their subsistence, and correspondent to their natural wants and desires; its security was one of the objects, that induced them to unite in society. No man would become a member of a community, in which he could not enjoy the fruits of his honest labour and industry.

  William Paterson

  Men, Rights, Community

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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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• It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Rights, Government, Resorts

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”, p.114

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• Natural rights [are] the objects for the protection of which society is formed and municipal laws established.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Rights, Law, Protection

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• All men are created equal and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Pursuit Of Happiness, Men, Liberty

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• [T]he liberty, the unalienable, indefeasible rights of men, the honor and dignity of human nature, the grandeur and glory of the public, and the universal happiness of individuals, were never so skillfully and successfully consulted as in that most excellent monument of human art, the common law of England.

  John Adams

  Art, Freedom, Men

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.440

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• A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

  James Madison

  Gun, Libertarian Party, Assault Weapons

  James Madison, Gaillard Hunt, James Brown Scott (1999). “The Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787: Which Framed the Constitution of the United States of America”, p.690, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

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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 inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men. We...solemnly publish and declare, that these colonies are and of a right ought to be free and independent states...and for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Independent, Men, Pursuit Of Happiness

  Thomas Jefferson (1997). “Thomas Jefferson, His Words and Vision”, p.15, Peter Pauper Press, Inc.

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• The right of conscience and private judgment is unalienable, and it is truly the interest of all mankind to unite themselves into one body for the liberty, free exercise, and unmolested enjoyment of this right.

  Ezra Stiles

  Exercise, Liberty, Body

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

  Thomas Jefferson

  Rights, Law, Majority Rule

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1801

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• A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. - Second Amendment to the Constitution An armed society is a polite society.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Gun, Libertarian Party, Assault Weapons

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• We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Inalienable Rights, Sacred

  Declaration of Independence (1776)

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• When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Respect, Nature, Law

  Declaration of Independence (1776)

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• And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

  Thomas Jefferson

  God, Support, Independence

  Declaration of Independence (1776)

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• That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.

  Richard Henry Lee

  4th Of July, Independent, Political

  Resolution presented to Continental Congress, 7 June 1776

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• We should remember that the Declaration of Independence is not merely a historical document. It is an explicit recognition that our rights derive not from the King of England, not from the judiciary, not from government at all, but from God. The keystone of our system of popular sovereignty is the recognition, as the Declaration acknowledges, that 'all men are created equal' and 'endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.' Religion and God are no alien to our system of government, they're integral to it.

  Mark Levin

  Kings, Men, Rights

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• The Founding Fathers believed devoutly that there was a God and that the unalienable rights of man were rooted - not in the state, nor the legislature, nor in any other human power - but in God alone.

  Tom C. Clark

  Father, Men, Rights

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• God forbid that the day should ever come when, in the American mind, the thought of man as a consumer shall submerge the old American thought of man as a creature of God, endowed with unalienable rights.

  Benjamin Harrison

  Men, Rights, Mind

  Benjamin Harrison (1901). “Views of an Ex-president”

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• All men are, or ought to be free, possessing unalienable rights, and the high and noble qualifications of the laws of nature and of self-preservation, to think, and act, and say as they please, while they maintain a due respect to the rights and privileges of all other creatures, infringing upon none.

  Joseph Smith, Jr.

  Men, Thinking, Law

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• Democracies have been, and governments called, free; but the spirit of independence and the consciousness of unalienable rights, were never before transfused into the minds of a whole people....The feeling of equality which they proudly cherish does not proceed from an ignorance of their station, but from the knowledge of their rights; and it is this knowledge which will render it so exceedingly difficult for any tyrant ever to triumph over the liberties of our country.

  Sarah Josepha Hale

  Country, Women, Ignorance

  Sarah Josepha Buell Hale (1828). “Ladies' Magazine”, p.443

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• Last time I checked, Congress was created to uphold the values of the Constitution, not the Bible and its biased teachings. 'All men (including women) are created equal' and are afforded unalienable rights. Way to go, Mr. President! Stand up for what you believe and for the people of this country.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Believe, Teaching

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• Thomas Jefferson understood the greater purpose of the liberty that our Founding Fathers sought during the creation of our Nation. Although it was against the British that the colonists fought for political rights, the true source of the rights of man was clearly stated in the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson wrote that all humans are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights . . . . It was self-evident to him that denying these rights was wrong and that he and others must struggle to win what was theirs.

  William J. Clinton

  Father, Struggle, Winning

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