Rights Quotes - Page 110

We look back, already, with astonishment, at the daring outrages committed by despotism, on the reason and rights of man; we look forward with joy, to the period, when it shall be despoiled of all its usurpations, and bound forever in the chains, with which it had loaded its miserable victims.

The rights of man as the foundation of just Government had been long understood but the superstructures projected had been sadly defective

Extend the sphere and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have common motive to invade the rights of other citizens.

The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.

No cause can justify the abuse of human rights.

Human rights transcend local or ethnocentric values, conferring equal dignity and value on all humanity regardless of sex, ethnicity, sexual preference, or religion. It is in the West that human rights are most respected.

My friends, to those who say that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 172 years late. To those who say that this civil-rights program is an infringement on states’ rights, I say this: The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.

Tom Regan’s now classic Case for Animal Rights blends careful argument with intense moral concern. For two decades, where Regan has been taken seriously, animals have been better off and people have become better persons. This new edition is a welcome sign of this influence continuing.

The judicial branch has, in its finest hours, stood firmly on the side of individuals against those who would trample their rights.

I don't think the riots derailed the civil rights movement.

In 1694 a law was passed "that every settler who deserted a town for fear of the Indians should forfeit all his rights therein." But now, at any rate, as I have frequently observed, a man may desert the fertile frontier territories of truth and justice, which are the State's best lands, for fear of far more insignificant foes, without forfeiting any of his civil rights therein. Nay, townships are granted to deserters, and the General Court, as I am sometimes inclined to regard it, is but a deserters' camp itself.

Liberty, whether natural, civil, or political, is the lawful power in the individual to exercise his corresponding rights. It is greatly favored in law.

When one comes to think of it, there are no such things as divine, immutable, or inalienable rights. Rights are things we get when we are strong enough to make good our claim on them.

It is a significant fact that, of all the Christian countries, in those where the church stands highest, and has most power, women rank lowest, and have fewest rights accorded them, whether of personal liberty or proprietary interest.

In a democracy, society must recognize that the individual has rights which are guaranteed, and the individual must recognize that he has responsibilities which are not to be evaded.

By assigning his political rights to the state the individual also delegates his social responsibilities to it: he asks the state to relieve him of the burden of caring for the poor precisely as he asks for protection against criminals. The difference between pauper and criminal disappears - both stand outside society.

When a legislature decides to steal some of our rights and plans to use police force to accomplish it, what's the real difference between them and the thief? Darn little! They hide behind the excuse that they're legislating democratically. The fact they do it by a majority vote has no moral significance whatsoever. Numerical might does not constitute right, no more than a lynch mob can justify its act because a majority participated.

When declaring your rights, don't forget your responsibilities.

Minorities have never been given their rights. They have always had to wage a political and legal battle to win them.

A: Snowden has enough information to cause more damage to the US government in a minute alone than anyone else has ever had in the history of the United States. But that's not his goal. [His] objective is to expose software that people around the world use without knowing what they are exposing themselves without consciously agreeing to surrender their rights to privacy. [He] has a huge number of documents that would be very harmful to the US government if they were made public.

I was involved in the civil rights movement way back in the late '50s and through the '60s and '70s. I was doing a civil rights musical here in Los Angeles and we sang at one of the rallies where Dr. Martin Luther King spoke, and I remember the thrill I felt when we were introduced to him. To have him shake your hand was an absolutely unforgettable experience. Even before I could vote, I was involved in the political arena.

The US needs a cap and trade system with auctioning of licenses for emissions rights. The revenues from these auctions can be used to launch a new, environmentally friendly energy policy. That would be yet another federal program that could help us to overcome the stagnation.

That all power of suspending laws, or the execution of laws, by any authority, without consent of the representatives of the people, is injurious to their rights, and ought not to be exercised.

The people will learn to feel the dignity of man. They will not merely demand their rights, which have been trampled in the dust, but themselves will take them - make them their own.

If an animal has any rights at all, it's got the right not to be eaten.